The amatuer "programmer"

Hello everyone… Belated New year & Makara Sankranti wishes! Hope 2023 takes us to greater heights! ??

It has been a long time since I wrote a post. My state of mind hasn’t let me collect my thoughts cohesive enough to write. ?? Hopefully, will try to post once a fortnight.

Today’s topic (“I enjoy being an amateur programmer!”) is more of a mini-biography - some are like CV points that may not be part of my CV. ??

It is a long read - please treat it as 2 posts!

The awakening

The 90’s was a fascinating time. In the early 90s - computers were only meant for professors / post-graduates / top corporates… by ‘99, desktops and internet had reached many households.

The fear of Y2K bug (the risk of computers going back to 1900 after 1999 as most software seemed to work only with 2-digit year formats) had triggered massive opportunities and exodus to the US. While Y2K boom might have bust, but for many Indians - it became like a one-way ticket to heaven. ??

But this post is more about my own little journey to nowhere. I am sure some of the readers would find it very relatable and recollect so many things we have now taken for granted.

My first tryst with a computer was a black screen like this. It looks so dull in today’s world but back then, it felt like a baby seeing the world for the first time! ??

Chronology

Circa 1993

The only screens we knew back then were TV (only Doordarshan) and movie theatres (“Silver screen”).

That apart, video games like Atari and Sega had then entered a few households and we used to visit those “special” friends to get a chance to play something so cool!

Was also privileged to use a computer at my friends’ places. As with all young kids, even that was converted to playing even more cool games (Some of those can still be tried with this emulator site: https://www.playdosgames.com/)

But it also helped us familiarise with how to use a keyboard and a “mouse”.

Circa 1996

Around 1996, my dad could see the IT wave coming and wanted me to prepare for it. I went to typing classes and joined an uncle’s coaching centre for learning tools like MS DOS, Wordstar, Lotus123 and dbase IV.

Some of the shortcuts learnt back then still work! ??

Windows 95 with its start menu and UI blew us out of our minds. Except for more pleasing colour schemes, the features are almost the same even now.

1997-99

My dad got me a “PC” - literally a personal computer. And dial up internet (the superfast 56kpbs one) was just getting started.

Got to create my first email ID on Hotmail, learnt about HTML and learnt to build a homepage with some database of elements in the periodic table format ??

1999-2001

Computer Science in Grade 11 & 12 was only the time I learnt programming seriously. Got to learn C++ in good depth and kept ending up with “null pointers” ??

My school project was to visualise 3D view of various molecules in 2 dimensions. Seemed simple but something fun to play with!

2 years went off like a blip - preparing for JEE - where Computer science was only for the best of the best. Hence, reconciled to taking any engineering stream whichever comes my way.

2001-2005

But once in Mechanical engineering, quickly realised I don’t enjoy physical experiments as compared to the theoretical Quixotic feel of basic sciences. Though I have never been really good at it, some form of programming seemed to fill that gap.

And web technology fascinated me. I tried to look the full suite of languages which powered the internet back then. Perl, PHP, Javascript on top of HTML.

My exposure to databases was non-existent. Everything was simple text files.

Though I hardly had it part of my curriculum, got to work on small projects which I still cherish.

Built tools with Excel VBA for hostel mess billing, invoicing for dad’s company, won a simulation championship in IIT Madras.

Built a small prototype of a social media platform before orkut/facebook/web 2.0 even existed. I had to take down the sites as they kept (rather embarrassingly) appearing in wingmates’ Google searches years later!

2005-06

Right after graduation, joined Tech Mahindra and I got a good 3-month formal training which helped set a solid foundation for me - especially related to SQL and shell scripting. I hardly spent 9 months with the organisation but things I learnt have stayed with me deep down!

2006-08

Joined B-school programme at IIM Lucknow in 2006 and the curriculum was so hectic that many gave up quality of study over quantity after a term or two.

Amongst all this chaos, still was able to contribute to creating the first online elective allocation system for the institute and help streamline data & improve UI for the tool used for placements.

2008-13

2008 was when I was re-introduced to this data guzzling world of telecom. We had tools that took 15-20 hours daily to just count and sum call data records (CDRs).

Got manage a database which processed 1 billion transactions per day at its peak. It helped teach a thing or two on being parsimonious and the power of optimising queries. What could take 10 mins could be converted to 10 seconds with the right approach with the same resources.

Also, built a PHP based graphing tool to analyse and drill down on daily recharges - way before “visualisation tools” became a thing. Helped me feel the ease of asking questions you want quick answers for.

In parallel, though not strictly programming, “Data Science” and “Machine learning” were becoming more than just buzz words. I completed Andrew Ng’s iconic course on Coursera (Link) but hardly got the right set of data & objective to put it to practical use. Churn prediction was a great theoretical example but predictability is quite tricky.

2014-22

In 2014, had joined Tata Play to help built a comprehensive reconciliation system. It helped me understand data traced from the lowest element to the top metric.

Got to run hundreds of lines of complex SQL queries, establish visualisation tools like Tableau and come up with a novel concept of a “Data week” to share the best tools & techniques to the larger audience.

Got to build a few interesting macros in Excel that helped the team turn around quicker and feel a bit more “powerful”. (Do DM me in case you want me to share some of them! Especially one to help quickly navigate across sheets ?? )

Current

After decades of using Excel, was introduced to a similar new world of “Google Sheets” in my current role. Haven’t been very successful with Google scripts yet but trying to getting familiar ??

But technology shifts so fast and below the radar that there is no place for a “know-it-all” ego. Every time I think I know something well, there are always examples that pop up which keep me humble.

For example, got to know about new functions like LET, LAMBDA, SEQUENCE from some pros like Viswanathan MB and Bhavya Gupta on LinkedIn. It has been more than 20 years of using Excel for me but that there is so much more I need to explore!

Takeaway

Though I have never been in a “tech” role for most of my career, I always found a reason to dabble with novice-level “code” some way or the other.

I have hardly ever been able to learn programming / any tool for learning’s sake. I have always found it relevant to think of a business problem to solve and learn the best self-service tech to enable them. Being it writing a VBA code, a SQL or a shell script.

But of late, age seems to have caught up with me. Am not able to have the same level of concentration or rigour to churn out some quality tools. At the same time, I always feel I have wasted 2 decades in which I could have learnt and done much more!

But like a similar post I had written on being an incompetent leg-spinner years back (Link), it is not able striving for excellence. It is the kick I get from the world-conquering feel of “for loops” and the simplicity of “if-else conditions” that very few hobbies could match.

At its core, most programming languages are the same. “Ekam sat bahuda vadanti” and it enables humans to do what Archimedes thought he could do to Earth with the right lever!

Thank you for your patient reading. See you very soon! ??