blog
date: 2016-01-12
summary: limitations of physical work vs unlimited opportunities with coding
The following are some thoughts on why I chose to learn to code.
I have a long history of working with my hands doing craft work, piano tuning and restoration.
Over the last 20 years, I saw customers who were in technology, working from home, living in big houses and having the freedom to work creatively while wearing their jeans drinking good coffee. I investigated networking, database work, software development and finally settled on web programming as my future.
I'm always thinking of how I can survive and feed my family. It is possible for through coding for a quadriplegic to be able to support his family, coding with his mind, and anywhere on the planet. The decline of craft work inspired my desire to make a living with my mind instead of my hands.
Coding provides infinite possibilities to solve problems. My goal is to connect people and data sets for those who do not have access to the rest of the world. My son has severe Autism and is essentially non-verbal. While I would not wish this 24/7/365 life on anyone, there are some lessons learned and opportunity to someday create software that will take advantage of the unique Autistic mind. My son has ingrained patterns that he follows, which are unknown in terms of origin, such as placing certain objects in the house, or ensuring that all door locks are vertical at all times, or diligently moving all toilet paper rolls to the storage closet (stranding the unaware bathroom visitor!). My hope is that we can eventually harness these “hard coded mind paths” through software.
I will never tire of the instant gratification of seeing my code work as expected, refreshing the screen seems to produce an endorphin blast (a fix that we crave as coders). And, the world at large sees these changes. So you get instant feedback and praise for working code.
Future plans include a teaching interface for piano students, via web browser. I want to have an iPad or laptop on the student's piano, where we can call up any MP3, YouTube sample, music notation software, metronome / drum machine application, recording capability and documenting tools for the lesson. Then the student can use all of these tools to keep practicing, refer back to our lesson video, play along with the original artist of a piece, compose their own songs, and submit finished lessons via the web portal.
The ability to leverage data is a never ending opportunity. Web programming makes it possible to gather new input, leverage existing data and evolve the kinds of problems we can solve in a any endeavor. The Internet of Things -- IoT, will affect us even more in the coming years. There is no end to what can be accomplished by capturing data from our physical world, to analyze and enhance life.
I believe that specialized knowledge and the paradigm of "the expert" is evolving and disrupting our notion of life learning, craft and "resting on one's laurels". The skill to learn and absorb is eclipsing the ability to store specialized knowledge for career profit. This is a double-edged sword, where it benefits all to have a more level playing field, but hurts those who are pre-wired to gather some knowledge, hoard it and profit from a scarcity mentality. For example, I learned plumbing online to the point that I was able to completely replace my home's plumbing. Same with other building trades. The effect of YouTube on so many crafts is still unfolding.
However, the need for mentoring is greater than ever. I see vast amounts of information but need guidance on where to begin, and how to get back on the horse after falling off. So while knowledge is becoming more and more "open source", the need for experienced mentors is increasing.
Web programming has a huge potential to feed my creative mind, provide for my family and provide a flexible career indefinitely, assuming that you are willing to learn on a regular basis.