What Code Is (According to me!)
I’m now an entire… week into the Vets Who Code program. This week we spent some time brushing up on the things we went over in the prework.
Command line, Git, markdown and things along those lines.
It was also recommended, if we had’t already, that we read the incomparable article What Is Code by Paul Ford.
Now Paul Ford has forgotten more about code than I’m likely to know (at least for a long time, so if you want to really know what code is, follow that link and set aside at least an hour to read it.
Actually, you’ll need way more than that, because in addition to reading it you’ll also need time to take in all the fun code toys, interactivity and other surprises embedded in the article (using code!)
What Code Is To Me
To me code is what we use to communicate, or interact with our computers…
Well, now that I look around my living room, there are programs (made up of code) being run in just about everything that I see!
So code is being used to interact with much more than just the computer that I’m typing this post on.
There’s an iPhone, an iPad, a modem, a cable box, a Nintendo, at Television and a BluRay player.
And that’s just in the living room.
So beyond the simple definition that I gave above, code has become something that is an integral part of our everyday lives.
I play guitar, and while 60–70 year old technology is still very prevalent in that world, I also have pieces of equipment that have more complex code than the computer that I had my freshman year of college!
This, for example:
The Helix is nothing short of a miracle in my opinion.
It contains dozens of models of amplifiers and effects (things that make your guitar sound different), all generated by code.
It’s basically a computer that you plug your guitar into, and it spits out credible replicas of analog equipment.
And while I’m going all music nerd on you, code has revolutionized the way music is recorded.
Once upon a time, if you wanted to make an album, you went to a studio where someone had invested tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars on equipment to reproduce the music.
Now?
You can get Apple Logic Pro X on your Mac for $199 and make something that most normal people couldn’t differentiate from the big studio production*.
(* It takes a certain amount of practice and skill to do this, but what doesn’t?)
And I just saved you $99,800 or so.
So again, what is code?
It’s still something that we use to interact with our computers, but it’s gone way beyond that.
It’s changed the way we interact with our entire world.
Now code is being used by brilliant people everyday to enhance our lives in ways we never even knew were possible.
As soon as you think you have it nailed down, someone comes up with something completely different.
So what is code to me?
Amazing.
