Arguing with a Computer
Conversing with another human and “correctly communicating” a thought is pretty hard to begin with. There is always little room for ambiguity and this can cause misinterpretations or miscommunications. People infer things and thank god they can. If people had to explain themselves to the fullest extent, simple things like ordering a burger or asking for directions would take a huge amount of effort. Computers do not really have any room for miscommunication. They must understand exactly what we say and do specifically what we ask. More often than not however, my instructions turn out to be wrong and they create an error. This is where debugging comes into play. It is quite honestly the worst and most agonizing part of coding.
To go through every single line of code to find a small error, which is usually some kind of punctuation or fatal logic error, feels pretty gruesome. But unfortunately, it is a natural part of the process. Over time, I’ve found it quite refreshing to communicate with a computer without any ambiguity through code. There is a lesson that can be taken from it because it’s the kind of communication that if I were to speak about a thought using the same method to a person, it would be very hard for them to misinterpret what I’m saying. This is helpful to keep in mind in any situation. I don’t know about others, but I for one encounter miscommunication with many people around. Be it with one’s girlfriend, co-worker, friends and family. After all, it’s not for nothing that the saying “Lost in translation” exists, as messages can easily be misinterpreted as it travels from person to person.
With a computer however, that is not as common. That’s why I see debugging as an argument between the computer and I. It is an argument over the idea I have in mind, which I want to express through code. This mindset made debugging much more enjoyable to me. It’s a still very laborious part of the process but now a slightly enjoyable part of the process as well.
Quick Shout Out to the MAZ Team for letting me intern here over the summer. It’s been great!
Noah Oberman is an intern and student at New York University.
