Anson's Random Dumps #9

This entry was significantly delayed, as I was procrastinating watching Lycoris Recoil couldn’t come up with anything great to write on, again.

Until I was stuck transcribing a piece of music. As a beginner scholar in music composition, and by extension music theory, it felt like the right thing to do. But now I’m stuck figuring out the length of the pickup measure. It just never sounds right.

I get stuck all the time. Particularly in programming. Sometimes, my code just seems to have no errors at all, and yet doesn’t run. (JavaScript callback hell, I’m looking at you) Things just don’t work for no reason, and I’m just stuck there trying to Google the answer. They usually happen during 3-5am too, how fun.

However, most of the time, Google doesn’t solve my problems at all. My problems are all too obscure to have an answer on Google (I’m not using popular programming tools). And I often have to end up looking at examples, then find the differences on my own.

Problem-solving is arguably the most important skill of a software engineer / programmer. Programming lexicons (e.g., if, else, for, while) never matter. How to solve a problem matters. You are to show competence in figuring out an approach to solve it.

I’ve solved countless problems during my journey of programming, and there are many more to come. Three years ago, I attempted to write a Discord bot in the Python programming language, with no prior experience. My code was dubbed “non-sensical” (it was invalid). Through solving problems, my code transformed. From “non-sensical”, to spaghetti (messy) code, then to cleaner, yet still messy, code. I committed a ton, yet I still have a long way to go.

I hope my journey to mastering music follows the same path. Right now, I might stumble on the most beginner mistakes, like getting a key signature wrong, messing up a tempo marking, but, by solving more and more problems, and the right guidance, hopefully I’ll get better and better, to the point that I can laugh at my mistakes made at this very day.

Success doesn’t come from thin air. It doesn’t. It has never been. It will never be. Some may regard me as an “ICT genius”, or “master programmer”, but such skills were built from an interest in computers since I was 3, years and years of programming with Scratch and Hour of Code, and another three years of finally jumping down the rabbit hole of text-based programming (i.e., Python, JavaScript, Java… Any real application is written text-based. No one uses blocks!). One might believe in prodigies, but I believe in commitment. Even prodigies are built upon them. If you keep on building that tower skyward, one day you will reach the skies.

I know. In terms of literary value, this entry has none. But all the words were typed straight from my heart. I hope I can shed some light on your colorful paths.

Anson