Randy Pausch, a computer-science professor who became internationally known for his inspiring “Last Lecture,” passed away in Chesapeake, Virginia, Friday after losing a battle with pancreatic cancer.

I was 5 or 6 when I got my first sense of the joys of computer programming. This was in the early 1980s, when few people had a computer. One day, my dad brought home a Sinclair ZX Spectrum, one of the ...