Is it essential to code for designers?
In my two years of Srishti, coding was something that scared me to my soul. The idea of learning a whole different computer language to execute our ideas seemed like a lot of work. I was waiting for the right time to jump into it and get it done with. But then as it says in ‘Hackers and Painters’, that a hacker and a painter are very alike. They both ‘CREATE’. The first week introduced me to the question I was struggling with for so long- Should designers code? It made me understand why is it important to create in both spheres. It is very essential to the whole package of executing your ideas in your own way. After that discussion, I decided to clear my mind of all the pre-conceived notions that I had entered the class with, and get a fresh start to the whole concept.
We started with the history of computing and it really surprised me that so many of the gadgets we use today, were just an idea in somebody’s head so long ago and was made possible with coding. It really inspired me to learn coding, as so many of those ideas were made executed because of it. Looking at the history made me realise how much we owe to our past. Buxton’s collection, Eliza and SketchPad were some of the great examples that we were introduced to. Each video helped us get closer to understanding what was going on in their great minds. These examples form the very basis of our modern day technology that we take for granted.
In coding, we started off with pretty simple command lines that helped us understand the whole concept of commands from the very start. It started off slow, but as we started getting the desired outputs, none of us could help but exclaim that tiny bit of happiness. It was interesting to open certain files by just the use of some commands. It was just another way of doing something for the same output, which really helps us to think outside the box in the longer run. We also learnt how to work with text and print maybe a ‘hello’. We got a small trailer of what we would be working with next week- Python. We understood that coding on Python was not going to be an easy task and we would have to give all our time to it, as there are no shortcuts.
Our first assignment seemed to be a very complicated task which eventually made way to something. I’ve been a part of many Wizard of Oz’s before, but the reading gave me a totally different perspective to how we can work around it in so many different ways, and the possibilities of the same. The idea of an conversational agent to be introduced in our campus was something which I had never thought of before. While talking to my team members, I was surprised by the amount of ideas that came into our heads. I’m really excited to see what we produce in the coming weeks.
