Ed Huntress wrote:

He's using Windows products, which often have to run all night to give him a
result. There are some minicomputers in the place running on Unix, but
they're reserved for other kinds of computational tasks.


Ed, is this about learning about programming?
or wrangling computers?

In the Windows environment, for actual programming,
ASM - for me, still.
VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) capabilities and Visual BASIC programming.
(macro language for all MS apps)

May I offer that learning CAD would provide more personal range of operation
that programming skills do not provide.



--

Richard Lamb