The technological state of the world today would be unimaginable even 100 years ago, and still is to most of our grandparents. From computers to tablets, GPS, smartphones, smart homes, Uber, etc., the list goes on; all these advancements have radically changed the way we interact with the environment around us and each other. Technology permeates our day-to-day lives at, quite literally, every level and shows no sign of letting up. The bedrock that ties all of these groundbreaking innovations together is the code that allows them to function and the developers that write it. Taking part in software development grants access to this field that shapes our culture and society as we know it.
I believe programming possesses a certain eloquence that cannot be understated. This eloquence springs from the very constraints that make it such a challenging skill to adopt and master. To offer an analogy, let’s think about a sport, let’s say ‘boxing.’ Many people might see the sport as deficient to a similar sport such as ‘kickboxing’ wherein the competitor can use his or her legs. Why not use all your limbs if you have them? But these, in fact, are the very rules that have allowed boxing to become the respected sport and art that it is. When one finds themselves limited in the tools they can use, they are then forced to find new and creative solutions using the tools at hand. Much of the innovation throughout history has been brought about through forced creativity.
This, in my opinion, mimics the same basic idea seen in software development. An employer might give you, the developer, a project with the endgoal being a particular functionality or program that completes a specific task. It’s your job to figure out a way to arrive at this end result, all while using the limited tools at your disposal. If programming were as simple as telling the computer what you want, and then waiting for the computer to spit out the perfect result, everyone would do it.
I believe that the combination of programming’s puzzle-like nature and societal prevalence are two of principal reasons that I am so interested in learning as much as I can about software and web deveopment.