Let’s make a sandwich: The inaugural post.

the goal of this publication:

In my very limited experience as a developer it has become VERY clear to me that the key to a job well done in this career path is effective and empathetic communication. This needs to happen in the code I write and in the interactions I have with colleagues, peers, and clients. Assumptions can never be made about how your communication (verbal, written, coded, etc) will be interpreted by the person or thing you are trying to communicate with.

This publication is intended to be an exercise in cultivating more thoughtful and clear communication between myself and that which I am attempting to communicate with. This is important at this time in my life for a number of reasons. I am in the middle of transitioning into a new industry and new career that involves communicating with people AND machines. I am also a highly emotional and empathetic being trying to interact with these machines that are not thoughtful, cannot read between the lines, are…well… literally literal. I have to comprehend multiple languages and frameworks in order to create and build the very things that are now a part of every aspect of our lives if we let them be. Then I have to be able to articulate my understanding of that knowledge to those that may hire me or work with me, in addition to those that are my friends and family and have NO clue what the hell I am talking about.

But I feel very strongly that understanding how to communicate with this technology that is such a big part of our world shouldn’t be this foreign unreachable thing. It shouldn’t be this secret club full of ego that only coders are a part of. It should be an all inclusive conversation. And I look forward to sharing some of those conversations with my mother through this publication as I attempt to talk to her weekly about various subject matter relating to computer programming as I am learning it. I am sure it will be frustrating at times, but mostly thoughtful, and pretty comical at other times.

what’s in a name?

I am sure you are wondering “Why ‘Peanut Butter Jelly Time’?”.
At the beginning of the immersive coding program I attended this year, the instructor talked about an exercise that helps students understand how literal you have to be to communicate with computers. This exercise involves a person that is playing the role of the computer and then everyone else is supposed to tell it how to make a simple PB&J. Comedy ensues and everyone learns it’s not that simple when the computer is making it. You have to think about ALL the things that are assumed knowledge for humans. You realize that the machine you are talking to cannot read between the lines like we do. We have to tell it every excruciating detail in a way that the computer will understand. You have to speak it’s language. Same is true when you are explaining what you do and what you are learning to a non-technical person. You have to communicate to them in their language.

So, as I set out to have weekly calls with my mother about what I am learning and building with code, I decided to call those calls Peanut Butter Jelly Time: Talking Tech with Mom because it is so similar to that playful exercise. This isn’t to say that my mother is stupid, but simply has a different way of interpreting and understanding the subject matter. Before each call, I am going to have to determine the subject we will discuss, research and prepare to discuss it in a way she would understand and be able to converse about, and also be able to anticipate what types of questions she might ask about the subject at hand in order to be prepared for that as well.

Wish me luck.