I liked this article, and found it a useful reflection on a common problem a lot of my friends with babies ran into. I was genuinely shocked at the amount of vitriol poured on this author's head as well as on Salon editors for choosing it as a lead story. I was even more shocked at the floodtide of bitter Salon readers who apparently hate their post-baby wives (thanks for the overshare, Anonymous, we get that you are having trouble at home) and are taking out their frustrations on an author they've never met. Get some help, people--or at least get a grip.

For the record, I'm a hard news fan also, but I think that these type of stories address things that are a large part of family life--and as such, are absolutely worth Salon eyeball time. Though I'd like to see more hard news political coverage back on Salon, is there some reason we can't have both? The tone of the other letters seems to assume a false choice between the two.

1.5 million Gazans for one Israeli? Are you kidding me? Israel gave the Palestinians Gaza back, and Palestinian terrorists immediately began to use Gaza as a base to launch rockets back at Israel. If Mexico or Canada began launching rockets at us, I guarantee you we wouldn't just sit there and take it, so why should Israel? I do feel great pity for Palestinian families who desperately want a peaceful life, neither in a refugee camp or a war zone--but now it's their own Hamas-run leadership that's holding the gun at their head, not Israel. And the constant whining and dependence on Israel for financial support is a pathetic representation of the rest of the Arab world's true agenda--if they want an Israel-independent Palestine, why aren't Arab countries like Syria and Jordan and Iran stepping up to pay for the obvious humanitarian needs of Gaza? Instead they'd rather watch Palestinian families suffer so they can whip up more fury against Israel. It's contemptible, when they could use oil revenue to alleviate the suffering (and support the Palestinian Authority, if they so desire).

Thanks, Sandy, for reminding me that it really is possible for a Salon columnist to do nothing but parrot the hard-left line, that means all Gazan Palestinians are helpless passive victims, even the ones who are coincidentally holding rocket launchers, and all Israelis are brutal oppressors, even the ones who wanted to give Gaza to the Palestinians. And "1.5 million Gazans suffer for one Israeli" is the most dishonest headline since "Dewey Wins"--considering the "one Israeli" was brutally kidnapped by Palestinians.

I'm a hard core coder. I live and breathe the stuff. I support myself and my family writing open source Java software (I'm the creator of two succesful Java project: Apache Tapestry and Apache HiveMind). I'm almost 40 and have been coding since I was 12 ... first in BASIC and 6502 Assembly, then pretty much everything in between.

I would never teach someone programming using BASIC. It's a horrendous language. Ugly and clumsy. It would be like teaching someone architecture by giving them an erector set and a blow torch. Nothing good would come of it.

Two languages I have been using to teach new programmers:

Inform 7: http://www.inform-fiction.org/I7/Welcome.html

This is a natural language programming environment for creating Zork-style text adventures. Just beneath the surface is a full object oriented system, lovely state machines, and even aspect oriented programming. And yet, it is fast and very, very fun, and terrific built in documentation.

On a more serious note: Ruby http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/

This is an object oriented scripting language. You can use it with an editor, you can use it from the command line. You can use it inside a web browser. You can play with Ruby, or you can build serious systems with it. Or you can play and end up with a serious system. It's also fun, and has terrific documentation (on line and in print).

Both of these are free (Ruby is fully open source, Inform is free-as-in-beer). They are easy downloads, as easy as downloading any game demo (and much smaller). Parents may be daunted by having to download, kids don't think twice about it.

Don't lament BASIC. It is irrelevent in the new order. And it was never as much fun as either of these two languages.

Hooray for Bill Maher! We pay extra for HBO to get his show, so it's great to see him on Salon. Keep it up!

Of course we focus on the wrong things. Noticing that corporate superstars are shaking our overweight, overmedicated, and underbrained preteens upside down until all their pocket money falls out is so much more difficult than pointing a finger at a revolting Congressional pervert. Skanky email confessions! Boxer clad underage page lust! And Foley was the head of the Congressional committee on missing and exploited children--you couldn't make that up, and if you did, no one would believe it. Possibly we should have noticed when Foley said "there are sexual predators targeting your children" that he was admiring his own reflection in Congress's men's room mirror.

You can't fully blame our dazed media morons for what they cover in this case(though I do). Naked chubby right-wing Republican congressman lusting after our teenage best and brightest (argh) vs. much more complicated, hard to explain, pesticide glazed apples and pill-popping junior varsity kids. Now if only one of the Congressional pages had been on Ritalin--then we'd have a story!