Joanne Scaife – 24th January 2012
I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code
For years I have looked at code as a foreign language, a realm of secret encryption requiring knowledge of commands very few people would have the patience to learn and understand. After living with a .net developer for many years, it still seemed a mystery. Watching him stare at a screen full of attributes and elements, the endless hours spent bug fixing to find that one damn broken line, and of course, the never ending new jargon he tried explaining whenever I asked “How was your day?” No matter how patient he was when telling me about his world, I still never really understood what code was all about.
Not until Decoded came to our school last week did I finally realise its perfect simplicity. They managed to put into perspective everything I had learned before and I could start to explore this familiar yet foreign world. Years of living with code everyday had given me a basic knowledge and a respect for the practice, but I had not been able put all the pieces together as a complete, interconnected system before. They lifted the veil of complexity that surrounded code and left in my mind simple core messages, I have been shown the starting point from which to explore. Breaking down the subject was the key to grasping the basic concepts and finally seeing code for what it actually is, a process.
I have spent years glazing over the theory of coding, it was only when it was presented to me in its most basic form that I began to understand the bigger picture. This is what great communication is supposed to do, whether it is in teaching or advertising. If you can capture the basic elements of any subject and present it in a way that is simple and engaging you create something more than just an array of information; a core message that scorches itself onto the mind. From this kernel, further meanings, explanations and actions can be grown. A simple message can change someone’s thinking for life. I have an appetite to learn more, I can see the elements of code, it’s structure and the ways it can be put together. Hopefully this will show me where it’s going too.
