Code1161 — Week1
Lecture& Tutorial
Both the lecture and tutorial were fairly procedural this week. Some of the lecture covered introductory questions like what programming is and what it’s used for, but most of the time was spent of what the course would and wouldn’t cover, what the coursework involved and housekeeping matters.
The tutorial involved setting up all of our personal laptops with the virtual machine (VM) we’ll be using this semester, as well as signing up for a few services that will be used as a part of the course — Github, Stack Overflow, Medium and Slack.
I only think I vaguely understand what a VM is and how it works. At this point I can foresee some swearing later in the semester when I suddenly realise that I just did a whole lot of work on my normal system that needed to be done on the virtual system and visa-versa. Hopefully that’ll just mean a quick cut and paste from one to the other, but an easy fix like that might just make all that time and nervous energy I just wasted trying to work out why it isn’t working when it should be working all the more frustrating.
I also have a bit of trepidation about using all of the services we signed up for. I’ve come across Github, Stack Overflow and Medium before but I’ve never bothered to participate in anything like that myself. That goes for forums, blogs, comment sections, social media etc. generally too. I even somehow managed to remain a Facebook holdout until August.
I suppose there might be a bit of a technical learning curve I suppose (in particular Github has always been a bit mystifying) but I’m not so worried about that. What I think will be more difficult will be getting into the habit of gathering my thoughts, typing them out, and shouting them out into the big scary void of the net. This is my first year of a computational design degree, and that’s probably evidence enough that I’m otherwise interested in computers, digital culture and other nerdy things, but in this one respect I’m a total grandpa — probably way more so than most people my age, let alone my teenaged classmates. I’ve never really bothered to take the time because I guess I always though a) why would anybody bother to read this? ; and b) isn’t it a bit weird if somebody does?
That being said, I’m glad these services exist. Stack Overflow in particular has been really helpful for me in the past. It’s crazy to realise just how hard it is to stumble upon a unique problem; no matter how specific your problem seems, somebody else has already had to deal with it. That’s probably a good life lesson in general, but at least with programming problems some kind stranger has probably already gone to the trouble of solving the problem too. If I can’t be bothered to sign up and post a question, it sort of blows my mind how eager people are to take the time helping out with advice — especially when the question is either really really rudimentary, or really really complex.
I suppose that’s one of the weird and wonderful things about the net. With a site like Stack Overflow It makes more sense — there’s probably a fair bit of overlap between the set of people who enjoy programming and the set of people who spend time posting online — but it’s crazy how often the same rule applies with whatever question, no matter how specific or esoteric. Say you type “ford laser console weird noise” into google and are directed to some forum post where not only has somebody had exactly the same problem, but somebody named LaserDan82 has written a 3000 word treatise in reply — “Ah if it’s a ’92 model it’s probably a problem with the speedo cable. In ’92 they moved the production of the models intended for the Asian market to their new factory in Korea and blah blah blah…” That’s one thing, but what’s really crazy is to notice that LaserDan82 joined the forum 13 years ago and has made 30k posts.
I love that even as the net becomes more varied and ubiquitous, at its core it keeps some of this spirit of catering to the slightly obsessive enthusiast. It has done as long as I can remember too, back to the dark ages of “world wide web” aka “information super highway”, when it seemed like most webpages would read something like this:
Welcome to my first webpage!
<marquee behavior=”scroll” direction=”left”> Click here for info on restoring antique furniture</marquee>
<marquee behavior=”alternate”> Click here for my walking journal<marquee>
<marquee behavior=”scroll” direction=”right”> Click here for my walking journal</marquee>
<marquee behavior=”scroll” direction=”alternate”> Click here for info on wetland bird species in SW Australia</marquee>
<marquee behavior=”scroll” direction=”left”> Click here for photos of my border collies</marquee>
And when you clicked on the dog photos link it would take a good minute or two to load a “UNDER CONSTRUCTION” gif.
I suppose the take away from the graham reading was some insight insight into the mind-frame and workhabbits that reward programming and similar work. It’s probably good advice that would apply to study too — and in that case it’s wel timed — but I couln’t help thinking that we were maybe getting a little ahead of ourselves talking about the trials and tribulations of working as a professional programmer in week 1 of first year.
