Don’t Fear the Code Reaper

As promised in the last post, today we are going to have The Talk about programming. So grab a log and put in on the fire, come on over here little whipper-snapper and listen close as ‘ole dad Roby tells you a story or two.

First off, I’d like to introduce you to my sister. She teaches algebra/geometry/calculus at the local high school. She graduated #1 from both her high school and undergraduate college class. She’s also picked up a master’s degree of some kind. I think the last time she made anything less than an A in class was 5th grade.

I don’t mention Sister to remember my own less-than-perfect academic record, or to give you a picture of an ideal programmer. Get this: Sister is NOT a programmer. She is not interested in programming. She’s got a good gig teaching and she doesn’t want to hear about software. She’ll live a wonderfully fulfilling life without writing a line of code.

Secondly, let me introduce you to my buddy Civil. Civil studied civil engineering at my alma mater, then went on to earn a Master’s degree from Georgia Tech in some nuanced form of engineering that I can neither remember nor pronounce.

The other night at church, I was talking with Civil about a new robotics project he’s tinkering with, and we had a conversation that went something like this:

Civil: I need to make the robot do X

Roby: That’s easy, just do that with software

Civil: Man, I’m not a programmer

Roby: What? Software is easy! Software isn’t nearly as hard as your Master’s from Georgia Tech!

Civil: (Looks dejected, appears suspicious of Roby’s claim)

So why did I introduce you to Sister and Civil? We’re illustrating this point: many people (perhaps most people) who excel at highly technical disciplines have some nervousness about software in general and writing software in particular. Wow, that sentence sounds just like something a programmer would write. Let’s restate that and make a bold claim:

Most Humans Have Codeaphobia

The truth is, I think there are many valid reasons that Codeaphobia has spread across the human race. Here are a few:

4. Code is Cryptic — Yes, code often looks and behaves in ways that simply aren’t otherwise common to the human experience. Think of this as opposed to building a bridge. My buddy Civil undoubtably knows countless nuances about successful bridge construction, but a hack like me is naturally tempted to look at a bridge and arrogantly think I more-or-less understand what it takes to build a good bridge.

Sister has spent half a career figuring out the best ways to teach energetic hormonal teenagers about mathematics, but I’m tempted to think “hey, that’s not hard, you just tell them the equations, do some examples, be firm but not too tough, relatable but not too familiar, and BAM! It’s easy to be a world-class teacher!”

While we often wildly overestimate our abilities in a variety of other disciplines, the average human is often inclined to grossly underestimate his or her potential coding abilities. Perhaps part of this phenomena is that, when starting out, code looks like Hieroglyphics.

Two quick points: first, modern programming languages are much more readable than that cryptic nightmare above. Second, Joel taught us long ago that code is harder to read than to write. I know that’s a tough one for a non-programmer to believe, but it actually is easier to write code than to read it.

The Cure for Codeaphobia

I’m convinced that if you simply start programming (as we’re going to do) and if you commit to writing code as a craft worthy of pursuit, that before long, you’ll look up and find yourself to be unusually proficient in a field you once regarded as unapproachable.

One time I heard Warren Buffett say that a 115 IQ is all you need to be a great investor — that sustained success in investing is more related to disposition than IQ. Similarly, I believe that successful programming is much more about disposition than IQ. If you want to learn to write code well, and you’re willing to commit to lifetime learning, then you’re going to become a remarkably talented programmer.

Enough Talk — Let’s Roll!

So we want to immediately write some simple code for the Arduino. Here are the steps to follow:

1. Purchase an Arduino Uno
2. Download & Install the Arduino IDE from here
3. Connect your Arduino to your computer via a USB cable like this:
4. Open the Arduino IDE
5. In Arduino IDE’s top bar, click Tools –> Board –> Arduino/Genuino Uno
6. In Arduino IDE’s top bar, click Tools –> Port –> (Select your Arduino Port — below is a screenshot of mine)
7. In Arduino IDE’s top bar, click File –> New (this will create a new “sketch” which is what we call the Arduino code)
8. Replace the all of the code in your sketch (created in step #7) with this code:

   // Code from https://www.arduino.cc/en/tutorial/blink
   // the setup function runs once when you press reset or power the board
   void setup() {
     // initialize digital pin LED_BUILTIN as an output.
     pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
   }
   
   // the loop function runs over and over again forever
   void loop() {
     digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH);   // turn the LED on (HIGH is the voltage level)
     delay(1000);                       // wait for a second
     digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW);    // turn the LED off by making the voltage LOW
     delay(1000);                       // wait for a second
   }
   

9. In Arduino IDE’s top bar, click File –> Save (name it whatever you’d like)
10. In Arduino IDE’s top bar, click Sketch –> Upload

If all goes well, then you should see an LED on your Arduino blinking on (for 1 second) and off (for 1 second). Did all not go well? Are you running into a problem? Congratulations, then this really is a perfect introduction to programming! If you hang in there and hammer away (and use your Google skills), you’ll get the code above running on your Arduino. You’ll know it when you see that beautiful LED light blinking.

Let’s wrap up today’s discussion on that note. Next time we’ll jump in head-first to some serious Arduino fun.

Until then,

Sincerely yours,

Roby

 

Notes

---

1. The masculine noun is intentional — for whatever reason I don’t think of software ladies as being quite as jerkish as we guys can be.