I had to take quote a line from the movie x-men First Class
character - Mystique “Mutant and Proud”. I found it profoundly inspiring to my
field of interest (coding/software development). Unfortunately you won’t be
seeing floating steel metals on mid air while reading this, nor will I discuss the
fate of mutants ; it does possesses far
awesome meaning. It means one should never try to change herself for mere
acceptance by the established thoughts, …well with the exceptions of super and
junior villains of course and with rare exceptions to the mentioned exceptions
in case if its Dead Pool and Suicide Squad I mean those guys are … ok enough of
them . The idea of uniqueness is something we must cherish or at least
entertain the idea of it. It gives you more than a glimpse of a gift of
peculiarity. Once embraced the journey
ahead will never be the same, not promisingly safe yet it let you walk on the
thin line of success and a brief moment of failure. Agreed, many people would say otherwise. After
all I’m writing in favor of peculiarity. Not awaiting a 5 star rating. Now I
would like to talk about geekness as in software development in particular.
Yes like any other science stream it does need all the hard
work
Almost a year ago I decided to embark on a journey of
further polishing my android programming skill. Like my first time “java
Servlet” coding pace in java EE; the progress was horribly slow but slowly gained
unstoppable momentum to a point where I can challenge Juggernaut (google it). Not claiming
I’m a born again developer to say it in more fancy spiritual ways ;-) Not claiming that I have achieved geekness
fully, but I certainly have a room for it. Such geekness is invaluable in all sense because
it’s Science Craft, there is always new, faster and better ways to accomplish
the task in hand and create excitingly new task. To mention some geekness
description from my own experience and contemplation of its meaning I have come
up with some stunning lists.
My close friends, baby sister and honestly my dates all gave
it subtly different yet similar meaning calling it “Aelaf Into the Androidness”… again with super
hero movies(Thor or Star Trek) admit it does rhymes.
#0 Many times in middle of conversing with people, either your
face lit up or something while making code loop checking by remembering some
ideas over the projects you currently working on. I was warned that it can
bring disaster. It is a character I had the liberty of doubting to ever
exercise on myself. Yet the symptoms are plenty. Thus here are few of the
undeniable symptoms that can distinguish proud geek from just a geek or even
worse, a normal person!!! ( don’t wanna imagine that)
#1 After day/ evening
long coding with errors and u r climbing your apartment, if you are making
plans and do momentary Spanish poses(not
to be admired by passing girl but only to ponder over your problems) and throw
some curses over your silly mistakes upon discovering.
#2 if you are on a date, and if she went to the rest room,
and you start wondering about your projects bug instead of polishing the next
killer line upon her return.
# 3 If your eyes pop out every time u come across latest plus
advanced tutorial on your subject of interest. While watching tv tech program,
you hear a tiny squeak from people around and you wave your hand to them so
much like you are hearing a breaking news about a nuke strike or the next Moon
Landing.
# 4 Have a habit of forgetting your facebook, viber and you
run to your gmail and back to the project
# 5 makes heavily intellectual excuses for your social absence to your loved ones to the point where they break and start asking you about the news or
your high school friends…
# 6 upon introduced to sage programmer, she/he start to show
u coding tricks(call it dramatic coding!!!) that u considered out of the mortal realm. You fired up all
your questions, moment of mentor-ship happening in seconds.
#7 When you heard of the latest API or some refinement which
you had some trouble with that you actually
report as a bug. A reaffirming thought that you are not just making a
living but contributing to a noble cause.
#8 when your answer on www.stackoverflow.com
is rated badly, knowing you can’t go back crawling to your mama nor your
girlfriend’s arms but to work on your mistakes
#9 when the famed world class senior developer responded to
your email in person. You read it at least three times.
#10 Having a ha
moment even in middle of a college/ work interviews.
Alas there are many
examples. Thus to reach geekness ninja level, mastering the core science is a
must. In programing world, it includes algorithm, data-structure and many
others. But to keep the passion alive you need to keep your eyes to the art of
it, that includes AI based softwares, amazingly useful apps, cyborg arms. More
like Da Vinci passionate observance to human anatomy minus the digging out
corpses and dissecting them. But in fact that’s exactly what it’s called unit
test.;-)
In short, just admiring the amazing invention alone nor
being caught up in trying to master every bit of it won’t bring the true
geekness from within you. But rather bridging your skill mastery to the artistic
inventions you excitingly admire.
Love the science and the art will follow.
Just promise me that after u become a tech mogul you won’t make scary statement on the
internet like magneto did in front of
the White House saying “… you have the right to fear us, we geeks will inherit
the earth!!! ”
Enjoy geekness to the fullest!!!
