The Chevy S-10

My very first car was a blue stick-shift Chevy S-10.

I don’t know how many of you have ever learned how to drive a manual transmission, but it’s as frustrating as it is enjoyable, at least for a beginner. If you don’t coordinate shifting with releasing the clutch perfectly, then your engine completely stops and you have to restart your car.

Lately I have been feeling that I am “stalling out” while coding. I will be cruising along, finishing up different tasks and pushing code frequently when all of the sudden I get stopped in my tracks by something I don’t understand or get lost in a frustratingly simple bug. Damn you curly braces!

These roadblocks are particularly common in my internship where my role is to help transition an old code base into a new framework. Specifically, I am migrating the old Java/Kotlin architecture to a new JavaScript/React framework. The product I am working on is an electronic medical record best suited for EMTs, fire departments and police forces. Needless to say, the code base is enormous with both a web and mobile suite. Not to mention hardware integration for different medical devices and handling sensitive health information. Going from a code base of less than 20 files to one with 1000+ files makes me dizzy. And being a part of such a large and important piece of software is definitely intimidating!

Though stressful, beginning programming in the commercial world has been just as rewarding as learning how to drive a stick-shift. By far there have been more good experiences than bad ones. And just like learning to drive, the more time I put it, the easier and more natural it becomes.

import current_stats from 'failure_stats.py'
import datetime

current_stats(datetime.today())

Output: 
# Undos as of today: 2014
# Deletes as of today: 1597
# Backspaces as of today: 22113