Mm..Foo
During the building of my command-line interface (CLI) project earlier in my coding Bootcamp experience, the veil of coding and programming was raised slightly for me. I had a great revelation, which revealed that programs and apps are similar to magic tricks, and a computer or device overall cannot innately do anything magical. And though code and programs are not entirely void of appearing magical, they only do what they have been designed to do, partly giving the user an experience. What I truly understood during that clarity is that it will be my job as a coder and programmer to become a digital magician, making the seemingly impossible seem possible through code. As a digital magician, I will build an application for real-world magicians that allow them to give each other advice on magic tricks. This will be the objective for the first application I build with Ruby on Rails.
Overall the minimal efficient amount of resources to create an experience to cause a belief that allows the end-user to accomplish life functions by utilizing an app or program should be a programmer’s duty. Programmers/programs should make life easier; programmers/programs should help make life better. Making better will be part of my focus as a digital magician. When magic tricks are revealed, it is said to have ruined the trick. Also, lessening the impression the experience made on the observer. When I recognized that programming and coding are a form of creation, liken it to a digital magic trick, I was more impassioned with my coding journey. Imagining that I can create magic in a digital form, the type of magic even when it’s revealed, it’s so convoluted that the trick is seldom revealed or understood by anyone but other digital magicians that have taken the time to learn how to code and program. This Ruby on Rail project is the third application I’ve ever written during this Bootcamp experience and the most challenging yet. As a magician, you practice a trick until it can be performed naturally and effortlessly while not revealing the ‘trick’! These early Bootcamp projects are a form of practice that allows a digital magician to learn programming fundamentals to claim some level of proficiency by creating an app that is reliable and doesn’t break.
Often the techniques used to fool us in a good magic trick are so simple when revealed, we instantly understand how the trick works. I don’t think the average person understands how a program or application works even when the underlying parts are revealed. The inherent abstraction in the hardware design of computers, code, and programs make it very difficult to understand from a user’s perspective. And totally not understood fully from a programmer perspective either. Considering the end-user is only using this electronic convolution to do things in the real world that directly affect their lives, they may not care about how an app or computer works, but whether or not it just functions well. One job as a programmer is to provide a user experience that highlights the ease of use and reliability. My program or application should never break and is always consistent in how it operates. In providing a desired utility to the end-user, and positive experience is paramount. In programming and designing applications, always keep user experience in mind from the visual aspect of how my application can make someone feel and a practical app functionality of accomplishing the end-user’s desired goals to enhance their lives. My Ruby on Rails app allows magicians to create an account and share their favorite magic trick or technique under a chosen category of performance type. They also have the ability to share a performance tip to another magician’s saved favorite tricks. Fundamentally I have accomplished this goal of a functioning app whose underlying functionality can be applied to many other applications.
Magicians’ ethos is never to reveal the trick. But in becoming a programmer and hopefully a coder one day, most people don’t understand what I am talking about even if I show the code of an application I am working on. You can give them a peek of what’s behind the curtain, and they are still bewildered. To me, one of the most magical things about programming is that code runs the world, but only a small percentage of the world knows how to code or program. And the power of one program or app influencing the world is great. And If your application is good, something you may have spent hundreds of hours working on making, and if it’s useful and reliable and when you release it to the world, it can change people’s lives. That one application can be essentially copied millions and even billions of times, utilized by millions and billions of people that is magical. That is the magic I am trying to obtain.
