How to code, to my younger me

(by Ronny Errmann)

Every time I prepared for interviews or when I started a new role, I learned so many new concepts. Unfortunately, once working in a scientific role, I found it harder to keep this learning up. Making the time to learn about concepts and to talk about code was quite low on my priority list. While reviewing code is something, which I still think is difficult, learning new concepts is something that can easily done. For example, freeing up one hour once or twice a week can make a big difference. Recently I look into C++ methods and just by looking through a few pages of a tutorial (e.g. about classes), I feel I increased my knowledge by a large amount. So there is really no reason to use that as an excuse.

Discussion about code is a bit more difficult. Being the sole programmer in a team doesn’t make things easier, discussion of code means I take time from a different project. Furthermore, in a scientific environment, most people were also self-taught and, like me, only learned the necessary information and were goal driven. But of course, it is important to discuss code and the few experiences, that I have had in the last months, together with the explanation how companies practise these discussions, have changed my view a lot. It is worth the effort, and try to find a group to discuss things can be really beneficial. So similarly to my last post, I would answer to the question, if I would do things differently now with a clear yes.

A beginners code

(by Ronny Errmann)

As mentioned in my last post, I started coding without asking for advice. Which meant I would do things inefficiently. For example to calculate the standard deviation I used the following code:

mittel=sum(l for l in temp)/len(temp)
stdev=math.sqrt(sum((l-mittel)**2 for l in temp)/(len(temp)-1))

Later I learned about numpy, which made things a bit easier:

stdev = numpy.std(temp, ddof=1)

This is also quite a bit more efficient in computing time as it is run in compiled code and not has the overhead of an interpreter language.

Looking back I can smile about the code. In an interview I was once asked about that program if I would do things differently now. To which my answer was a clear yes.

How I came to writing code

(by Ronny Errmann)

The first device I wrote my first programs was the CASIO CFX-9850G, a graphical calculator. We needed it for school (I think 8th grade) and to get it for a lower price, were suggested to buy it even half a year earlier. That was in the mid 90s and, out of interest and out of boredom, I read the manual to see what one can do with it. And by talking to friends, being showed programs from others, I started to understand other people’s code and then tried to solve smaller questions. With time the programs got bigger. In the end I programmed a battleship game and 4 wins, ready to be played in boring lessons against the person sitting next to you. While the programs are long gone (maybe the hand-copied code is still in a folder at my parents place), the calculator is still a part of my desk, although, primarily just as a calculator.

A few years later (or at the same time?) we learned Delphi in School. It was only one year with one or two hours a week, so it couldn’t go into details, however, I know I tried to improve the programs and write more complex ones after school or at home. The GUI made some parts easy, however, looking back it also prevented me from understanding that there is a big benefit for writing back-end code.

After School my interest in coding decreased, mostly because I thought I wasn’t good enough or didn’t see the application. And interest in learning background theory was limited at that age. When I started my Physics studies live was also busy enough. To analyse the laboratory experiments I would work with Excel/OpenOffice Calc and Origin. The built-in functions were enough to solve everything, not elegant, but efficient (in terms of my time).

In my masters project I found the limitations of OpenOffice Calc. To do calculations I just needed so many columns that I would crash it on a regular basis. However, it took until I had to do the first analysis of observational data, that I noticed I need to learn programming. Other people at the institute suggested Python as a start. And so my first basic program was just a python script that would do the steps I would do by hand by itself. It was very procedural, and when I look back, quite funny in how I wrote it. I definitely didn’t search for advice. Luckily this has changed over the years.