I really enjoyed programming in "assembler language," more challenging because the programmer has to master many technical details, but yielding much more efficient code that uses a much smaller memory footprint. Coding in this lower-level language was fun. It felt like I had more control over my applications: I was coding much closer to the machine level than using a higher-level programming language such as COBOL. The classwork was routine to somewhat challenging, but also fascinating. I was doing what I loved: learning more about computer systems and programming. When the subject of hacking came up every now and then, I played dumb, just listening.