Creation Before Code
The best developers know that they’re probably not. That’s the dichotomy that faces everyone working in, with and around code. With an endless variety of languages and frameworks to learn all with their very own syntax, their own benefits and, of course, shortcomings, how is anyone expected to be omniscient. They can’t be. It’s not possible.
There are two indispensable tools a programmer needs in their skill set — an interest in lifelong learning, and a love for the things they craft if not the craft itself. A solid foundation in the fundamentals would also be useful but as long as it doesn’t stand in the way of creation, of getting the idea out of one’s head and into even a prototype reality.
The idea is paramount.
This is one of the philosophies that has stuck with me since my time studying Interactive Media, a subject that has changed name many times over in the last decade. The concept comes first. How it will be delivered is secondary; one should remain agnostic of tech in those initial sparks of a project.
It might be obvious, but my background sits firmly in the art world where I used ActionScript and Lingo to create overly ornate websites and buggy art installations. Now, these two languages are extinct along with the multimedia packages that kept them alive. But this initial realisation that with code you could make anything has remained. In fact, they were a conduit by which I learnt that (at that time, at least) I would have to hack and repurpose my way to a better comprehension of how the Internet worked. I distinctly remember backwards-engineering a band’s website built in rudimentary HTML in order to make my own site.
One of my favourite little scripts is James Bridle’s Welcome.js. This confirms that I am not alone in this approach to learning. It’s a browser tool that welcomes the inquisitive to the browser console, and encourages them to look around. The antithesis to Facebook’s ‘Stop!’ warning, go no further, return to your stream of algorithmically-curated content. On his website, Bridle explains that “Since the beginning of the web, thousands, probably millions, of users have bootstrapped their way to technical understanding through exploring the way the existing web is put together.”
To many people it is magic — making the seemingly impossible possible, but that doesn’t mean it has to be arcane. A 2015 CompTIA questionnaire surveyed over one thousand 19 to 24 year olds and found that although 96 percent of them loved technology, only a fifth of them had any interest in pursuing a career in the more technical industries. We will always need the experts in their fields -the cunning folk that have intrinsic insight into how the world is constructed — but for everyone else, there needs to be a gateway to this knowledge.
I would argue that portal is an idea. A starting point for those questions: “How do I do X?”, and “What is Y?”. In his book ‘Deep Work: Rules For Focused Success in a Distracted World’, blogger and professor Cal Newport proposes that those with a propensity for quickly mastering complicated subjects will prosper in the future of the digital industries. Now, the web is a self-perpetuating machine that contains an ever-growing wealth of video tutorials, long-form articles, and snippets of code on how to manipulate its own structure. A resource waiting there for anyone to make anything they can imagine as long as they are willing to learn.
