Who I am
I write software
Sometimes, people say making software is like making a house. If people built houses like they built software, civilization would quickly crumble. Making software isn’t just about “sciencing” some text into some logical form, it’s about translating English into something useful to both computers and human beings.
Building software is more like writing a novel than building a house. It’s one thing to string a sentence together, but it’s much harder to craft a cohesive narrative. It’s easy to lose the plot. That’s why experience matters.
How I learn
I first learned programming in high school because I was lucky enough to attend a public school that actually taught coding in the early 00s (C++). Starting at $15.00 and hour programming for a family-owned manufacturing company, I transitioned into full time development after two years of college because I was learning a lot more doing hands-on work as an engineer.
I’m still the sort of person that learns best by doing. I dig in to problems, read code, read docs, and keep digging until I understand.
How I communicate
I don’t have the stats to back it up, but it seems like most people prefer to communicate the traditional way…you know, with their words? I like reading and writing, instead. I think a lot of great engineers are the same, because ultimately our job involves immense amounts of reading and writing. I’ve read that engineers typically can’t write, but that’s literally our job. It’s called a programming language for a reason.
I like writing in English as much as I like writing in code. Most projects fail because of breakdowns in English, not breakdowns in code.
Where I come from
I grew up in a conservative family that wasn’t sure how to react to having a gay son. I know, DEI isn’t popular right now…sure. But it matters, because my experiences shape my views on technology and software. I know how powerful indoctriation can be, and how dangerous.
Creativity matters in this industry. Going back to the analogy of a novel, anyone can fix bad grammar if they know the rules. That’s very different than fixing the plot in general, and that’s what most businesses really need.
In other words, my job is to build things. Keeping an open mind makes me better at building because I’m not just focused on how I speak with computers (although that’s still very important), I’m focused on making something awesome.