Destination Dev

“It’s happening, Reg! Something’s actually happening, Reg!” — Judith, Life of Brian, 1979 (or indeed A.D. 33).

The destination has been dev for over two decades, and I’m not there yet, but it’s titillatingly close now. One of those “Second Earth” exoplanets is twenty light years away in the constellation Libra, orbiting around Gliese 581, so I should be there by now. Software development is a sort of Second Earth, perceived by most Earthlings to reside on a different planet.

I’ve not been travelling at the speed of light this whole time, but now I am going superluminal since I started at Makers (makers.tech). More about that later.

What goes on under the hood has always intrigued me, from when it was literal; poking around under the bonnet of my first car in 1998, to learning how to set up my own guitars (don’t ask me to tamper with your Floyd Rose just yet though), and on to being intrigued by what it would feel like to know things that software people know. The first time I saw the terminal expose itself on a computer and saw that a human understood it and could interact with it made me want to join that groovy society. The first time I heard the phrase “LAN party” and thought, “That can’t be local area network… Can it?” Yes, it was. I’m not into gaming, by the way. Or films, actually, despite the quotes used in this article, but I make an exception for ‘Brian and have probably watched it 01110100011001010110111000100000011101000110100001101111011101010111001 times.

There was an iota of rebellion going on here because I was grossed out by following the herd and being into traditionally “girly” things, and grossed out by everyone recoiling from the terminal when surely they should be curious about it. It’s a shame that I’ve come here partly out of rebellion, and I hope that one day STEM women won’t have to be rebellious women, but just people who are interested in or have an aptitude for the subject. No fanfare.

A couple of weeks ago I realised I had completely forgotten that in the late 2000s or early 2010s, I learned a bit of HTML and CSS and crafted a website from scratch for my dear husband’s running coaching interests. It was rudimentary, but really satisfying when I deployed it. Sorcery! I must have been making an effort back then to squeeze through the portal.

Cats become significant here. I revere them, adore them, and want them all over my head. It would appear that they are quite the theme in the groovy society. When I first heard of GitHub, obviously the name made me chuckle, but the fact that the logo is a little black kitty made me feel that I had passed one of the tests for entry into the society.

I’ve just picked up “Why’s (poignant) Guide to Ruby”. The author claims that the little creatures featured throughout the book are foxes, but I disagree. They’re definitely black cats and they hoodwinked their own author into thinking that they were foxes. As the great Jaron Lanier says:

“They’ve integrated themselves into the modern high-tech world without giving themselves up.” — Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier.

He also says they know more than they’re letting on and I’m inclined to agree.

The Next Station Will Be Makers

“You lucky bastard.” — Man on the ground when Brian crash lands after that weird space scene in Life of Brian, 1979 (or indeed A.D. 33).

I first became aware of software bootcamps some time last year, and thought what a dream they sounded. But since I was two thirds of the way through an OU STEM degree and working, some dramatic changes would have to happen to enable me to do a bootcamp, so I shelved the idea.

Last autumn, I was in the office sending out a couple of radio ads for The Department for Education. I had a read through them and they mentioned government funded bootcamps. “Crumbs!” I thought. A government funded bootcamp could save thousands. It was a touch of serendipity as I was covering for a friend at work while they were on holiday and I wouldn’t have seen the script otherwise.

I’d been with my employer for nearly seven years at this point, and it was a very different place to the place I had joined, and it was probably time to get moving. Rumours were swirling about redundancies, and I decided that I’d have no hesitation putting my name forward for voluntary redundancy if that should be an option. I looked on the DfE wesbite and was all aflutter to see that Makers was on the list. I felt that a once in a lifetime gift was about to be thrown into my lap, and if I did get on to the course, I’d also be turning 42 during the course (if you don’t understand the significance of that, please go away and do some reading) which would be an alignment of the stars the likes of which are rarely seen.

Redundancy happened and I started my Makers application. It was quite a surprise how taxing and thorough it was and it became a full time job for a few weeks. Not getting in was not an option. The stars were aligned and I had to get on to what I believe is the gold standard of bootcamps. There was agony and ecstasy and ecstasy again when I found out that I’d got in and I felt about eighteen again with the world my oyster.

I’m now towards the end of week four, the “pre-course” and I can’t believe it’s actually happening. If you had told me a year ago that this is where I’d be, I’d have had a little daydream, then plodded on with the drudgery.

The pre-course so far has given me the agony/ecstasy cycle that I experienced during the application stage, but more intense. The main course starts next week and I understand that that will entail a further step up in the intensity. My most used emoji is now 😵‍💫 and I expect that to remain the case for the coming months.

Right, I’m off to bed. Nighty night!