It is a dark and rainy Saturday night, and I am reclining on my living room couch, scribbling logic onto paper. No, this isn't me trying to get ahead in math class. It's programming. Computer code. Pure Logic. And although my static face suggests an absence of higher-order thinking, my eyes are a flurry of movement, visualizing how the flow of logic will proceed. At the same time, I am looking for shortcuts, ways to decrease the size of my code. Optimization is key, especially in the pre-planning stages.
Pseudocode finished, I retreat to the confines of my bedroom and lock myself in. Solitude and a good pair of headphones are the fastest way to get into 'The Zone', an enlightened state of thinking where the mind is focused on one goal: perfection. Time flies while I'm there, and I achieve a harmony with my keyboard. Minutes grow into hours while my normally latent power of creativity is harnessed. My mind focuses on a goal, and undoubtedly, I will reach it. At the ungodly hours of the night, I stand up and stretch, venturing out to grab a midnight snack, anticipating my next chunk of computer code.
I am careful not to spend too long away from the computer. My mind is still bursting with ideas at this point, and a long hiatus can oftentimes result in discontinuity between ideas. Bridging my thoughts the next day can be tough, if not impossible. I return to the desk, review my flow chart, and resume typing.
5 AM, my work finally finished, I take the program for a test drive. It doesn't start. Damn. Time to debug. I peruse the unending walls of text, fixing the occasional misplaced semicolon. God bless Integrated Development Environments; bugs are quickly located and patched, a process normally taking hours.
Now exhausted, and no longer in 'The Zone', I let it run one final time. Success! A 3x3 grid materializes, and I happily place a circle in the middle box. The computer instantly reacts, conjuring up an X in the top left box, and I predict that this game of Tic-Tac-Toe will result in a tie. It had better, or I did something wrong. Two seconds later, hard logic prevails, and my mind meets its match against a machine. Sunlight creeps into the corner of my eye, and I sense it is time to go to sleep.
Programming. It is a way of thinking, not just a hobby. I often find myself tackling the non-virtual world like I would a computer program, using only logic, trying to give myself the best possible solution to a problem. Programming requires a mind to be creative, quick, well-structured, and most importantly, comprehensive. A programmer must be able to keep the Big Picture in his mind, to hold it and strive towards that goal. And in life, I now find myself trying to see the Big Pictures of the world around me, hoping to make a change. The programmer's brain resides in my skull now, endlessly questioning and pondering.