My parents were in town this weekend so that my Dad could attend the Agile Roots conference that I helped organize. During a break, while sitting at a table with some local developers I know, my father recounted a story from my childhood that I had forgotten. He was using the story to explain why he believed, that from an early age, I was destined to be in the computer programming field. On to the story.

One day in second grade I was being even more disruptive than usual, which my teacher didn’t appreciate too much. Being fed up with my insubordinate behavior, she sent me home with the task of writing the phrase “I will be quiet in class” (or something similar) 1000 times. That will teach me. A proven disciplinary method. Possibly if she would have had a more engaging discussion on the intricacies of basic math, I would have listened. I digress.

Once home, I explained the assignment to my parents. My father became outraged at the pure lunacy of the prescribed punishment. I agreed, of course. He ordered me to follow him to his home office. I no doubt thought I was in for a long lecture on the value of education and how I was wasting my opportunity. Instead, he sat me down in front of a marvel of technology called the TRS80 (pronounced by the in crowd as “trash 80″). He then walked me through creating my first BASIC program. It was short and sweet, but it efficiently printed out “I will be quiet in class” 1000 times. Now that’s working smarter not harder.

Needless to say, my teacher was not pleased. I think she wanted me to actually write the phase out by hand. She should have been more specific with her requirements and I continue to be a disruption in class. But I did learn to program.

I have reconstructed the full source code below (released under the Creative Commons License), so that if you ever have a need, and have a TRS80 lying around with a copy of BASIC, you too can teach your child to avoid punishment and skirt responsibility for their actions.

FOR I = 1 TO 1000
  PRINT “I will be quiet in class.”
NEXT I
END