Why programming?

I'm a mechanical engineer who plays with FORTRAN a lot.
Yes, I said FORTRAN. Some people still use it.

I often tell people that I'm a semi-software engineer (because I work with endless lines of codes), but at one point I realized that I don't know much about any "practical" programming skills.

For example, if my friend ask me to write a simple program that does something simple on his computer, I don't know where to start. Bummer. What kind of software engineer is that?

So I decided to learn more of different programming languages. More than I need to know for my daily function.

I started with C just because that's where everyone starts. After C, it'll be C++. After C++, I'll study php, SQL, and HTML.

This blog will be a progress report for myself and guidance for those who want to try something different than ordinary.