That was twelve years ago, before doing a couple hundred rounds of the Andy Cutler safe oral chelation protocol for mercury and other heavy metals.

This year, spring came very early and I wondered how that would affect hay fever victims. About a month ago, I started hearing reports of allergy problems from friends and aquaintances. Seasonal allergies in March in the upper Midwest seemed kind of impossible to me, so I waited and watched the local pollen counts, certain that it was a matter of time before I too was smacked with the symptoms.

Nothing.

Then, a week or so ago, when the pollen numbers started to climbing higher, I started playing with fire. I decided to try consuming significant quantities of milk and gluten products. This somewhat risky diet venture facilitated plenty of flashbacks of my very early days as a computer programmer.  Truth: there was a time when I survived on donuts, milk, M&Ms, and writing and testing code.

Now this experiment was not that unusual given the fact that I just finished up my studies at Code Academy where I worked 7 days a week a) learning and, b) building an app, c) neglecting the rest of my life, and c) getting less than optimal sleep. With the development goals and time constraints I placed on myself, it’s no surprise that regressing back into a diet primarily consisting of junk food became my choice of sustenance.

Yeah, it was an unfortunate option that I kept going back to again and again and again.

So here I am now finished with my formal Code Academy classes, but not finished with Code Academy forever, because I now see that Code Academy never really ends, it just takes on a new form.  Along with that happy news, I am also looking forward to my next big adventure which will involve tech start up software development as well as continued monitoring of the pollen count.

It really is thrilling that I have no stuffy head, itchy throat, watery eyes, or runny nose. So thrilling that I had to write an entire blog post about it.

I did sneeze a couple of time in the last 72 hours.  Does that mean I’m barely out of the weeds?

Today is Easter, the count is 10.7 out of 12. That’s high.  This morning, my kids divided and conquered the stash of candy that I accumulated and fortunately for me, they split things four ways instead of three. I love my kids. That gave the opportunity for one last test:

A cupful of malted milk candy eggs, artificially flavored coconut M&Ms, Nerds, and mini-Reese’s peanut butter cups. I skipped the jelly beans, because, well, I’m not a big fan of them and I figured the first four were enough. Then I downed a giant glass of milk. My nose felt a little ticklish and that’s all. I didn’t even sneeze.

I think maybe if I went really crazy with the wheat, dairy and candy I could overload my system and get all stuffy and icky feeling. I think. I’m not sure. I’m not going to try. I’ve pushed myself close enough to the edge that I know when to stop. I’m stopping now.

Overall, in the past few days I have tried eggs, corn, hazelnut butter, pork, chicken, soy, provolone cheese, cinnamon rolls, and peanut butter with nothing to write home about.

The only other thing besides the candy overload that I am curious about is cheddar cheese sticks. I ate one yesterday and started feeling a little stuffy in the head. So naturally, I waited several hours, had another one and low and behold, I noticed the same thing.

I’m not sure if it’s anything conclusive, but I won’t be eating anymore cheddar cheese sticks for awhile. And I’ll still limit my wheat and dairy intake. I’ll go easy on the candy too, until the pollen count comes down and I’m back working seven days a week collaborating, learning, coding and testing.

Happy Spring.

This has been one of the most action-packed eleven weeks I have experienced in a long time. Here’s how it played out for me:

I started in the beginner’s class, unsure as to whether I could learn again. After three weeks, that class was a wee bit slow for me. I switched to the advanced class. Around that same time, I felt I had enough information to start working on my web application, kdironside.com.  It’s a freelance photography app.

My goal at the beginning of class was to be able to show a functioning web application on Demo Day. I got the job done. It’s not finished. It’s very MVP,  but it’s working.

I didn’t try to reinvent the wheel or create my tech start-up idea as my choice of a first web app to build. I needed a breakable toy to work on in and out of class. I chose this app to write because I intend to use it. It has a pretty front-end and a database-backed behind-the-scenes management system for tracking photographers, clients, bookings, photo shoots, photos and email notifications. It has a multiple file upload, client login, admin login, and file viewing. It will also have a post-production comment/collaboration process, downloading, photo share buttons, and automated payment features.

It was a juggling act for me to focus on creating something while learning new things in class that may or may not apply to what I was trying to accomplish with this first app. So I will admit that sometimes I took lots of notes for later, and let a few things slide.

I found pair programming awkward at times and brilliant at other times. Just like any relationship, if you’re in sync, things go well and if you’re not in sync, things are awkward. I’ve thought about this quite a bit. I have most of it sorted out in my head and will probably blog about it sometime in the future. Suffice to say, I think differently and I learn differently. I’m old. I’m a woman. As a result, it’s usually me who ends up accommodating others in paired situations. So it’s no wonder that at times I got less out of the experience than if I’d worked on my own. At other times I struggled alone when I could have used a partner. C’est la vie.

Overall, I worked alone on my app most of the time. There were a couple of instances where others helped implement a feature and I am grateful for their input. My Code Academy mentor was exceptionally astute at guiding me without flat-out giving me the answers. She made we work for them and I appreciate that.

Around the nine to ten week mark I had to ease up on adding new functionality to my app. So in reality, I only worked on building it for about six weeks. I shifted toward tying up the visual loose ends, deploying to Heroku, a popular Ruby on Rails host, adding the photos, writing a new resume, setting up a development site, working on code samples to push to GitHub, meeting with Code Academy mentors about job leads and career advice, creating a screencast and practicing for Demo Day.

Looking back at the beginning, I did not know any of these things: Mac OS X, Textmate, Mac UNIX/Terminal, Ruby, Rails, HTML5, CSS3, Javascript/jQuery/AJAX, Coffeescript, HAML, API interfacing, TDD, RSpec, Twitter Bootstrap, and more. I’m still no expert, but I’m enjoying trying, failing, learning, trying failing, learning…

…I can’t wait to get back to business.

If you have a job lead, a startup idea, or want to collaborate on anything related to software or photography, please contact me.

Or a tech startup entrepreneur.

Or a corporate employee.

Or a freelancer.

Or even a team player.

Call it what you will, programmer, software engineer, software developer, software specialist, hacker, or whatever, in my mind, they’re all still computer programmers of one sort or another.

Tonight, I decided I am not waiting any longer for that random question, “What makes a good programmer?” So here goes. This is not based on a set of scientifically-regurgitated generalizations. No, this opinion is based on my personal thirty years of thinking, experiencing, observing, and talking with other coders of all sorts.

1. A good programmer may be any gender, age, or ethnicity. There are no silly “industry” prerequisites, like top-tier university education, specific political viewpoint, coding experience going back to junior high, or physical attributes. These things have nothing to do with ability to program proficiently.

2. A good programmer has a natural curiosity. This leads to asking questions, seeking out answers, being open to new ideas, and making connections with others. These attributes  truly are key.

3. A good programmer embraces change. Learning new concepts, tools, approaches, and code is important. That means trying new and sometimes risky stuff on a daily basis. The speed of change surrounding the internet, digital technology, software development, and even business development makes the need for embracing change more important than ever.

4. A good programmer has an opinion and takes a stand, but he also listens. Close-mindedness cannot be the predominant attitude. The tech world runs over the entrenched.

5. A good programmer knows how she works best and stays true to that pattern. Everyone is different. People have different brains, personalities, socialization, and learning styles. A good programmer doesn’t try to emulate someone else’s style. They find their own and optimize it.

6. As a result, a good programmer is productive. Productivity is not simply speed, but a balance of many factors including accuracy, efficiency, effectiveness, and quality.

7. A good programmer is humble. Not an original idea, but a good one. Ego+software development=everyone tolerates you, but secretly we wish you’d fall in front of a bus. If your identity is so wrapped up in always being [right, cool, smart, whatever], you need professional help. Those of use who’ve ever had to absorb the cost of an overblown ego on a tech team, know what I’m talking about.

8. A good programmer sees patterns. Yeah, this one is not original either, but one of the coolest things about recognizing patterns is that it means you stepped back and saw the big picture. A good programmer digs into the little details and sees the big picture and communicates and pivots, if necessary.

9. Good programmers really like programming. While a good programmer breaks things down in to manageable bits, he actually enjoys the tiny, little, incremental accomplishments that, in sum realize a bigger goal. That’s part of the reward of being a programmer.  Persistence pays off and the higher reward is we get to make things happen.

10. A good programmer gives back. In the age of free information: open source, free add-ons, free designs, and free help, every good programmer should be making an effort to contribute, share, and give back to the community. It’s the right thing to do.

So you think I’m having a bad time of it, eh?

Not true! I am enjoying the ups, facing the downs, and tickled pink at the “ah-ha” moments.

Struggling is not a bad word in the world of software development. It is a necessity. If you don’t have the patience to commit to the struggle, exhaust the possibilities, ask for help, be humble, and open your mind, then you probably don’t have it in you to be a coder for the long haul.

For those of us who really do like programming, part of the joy is embracing the unknown, overcoming a multitude of obstacles, sharing, collaborating and commiserating, until we finally get to see the end-result, pieced together increment by tiny increment.

Another part of the joy of coding is that we get to do it over and over again,  taking on new challenges and hopefully, increasing our knowledge-base.  With software development, one can never know it all. It’s a rapidly moving target. There is always more to learn. And most of the time, the change is good.

That’s why I reckon my personal experience so far has been mostly positive, eye-opening, humbling, exhilarating, energizing, and fun. Yes, fun! I think that’s a pretty good start.

The competition was stiff.  Avoidance of embarrassment was at the root of our protective posturing. Winning meant a brief, yet fleeting feeling of superiority. When failure was immanent, last-resort tactics like “the verbal smack-down” worked. Objective destroyed.

It was a high-stakes game that we played in the Land of Defensiveness. Or so we thought.

I have been looking at how, when, what, who, and why I resort to defensiveness. I would love to expound upon my glorious victory over this self-involved self-preservation tactic to the nth degree way of living, but that’s not my reality.

I am on the path to figuring some of it out. It’s a goal. Slowly, I am seeing my defensive actions for what they are: roadblocks to learning, stalwarts to moving ahead, emotionally stilted and socially blunted coping mechanisms.

The hardest part of stripping myself of defensiveness is laying open a vulnerability that means I might have to face a reality that I don’t particularly like. Part of that reality is knowing that I am not the smartest, the wisest, nor the best. It may mean that people don’t like me. Worse yet, it may require me to review, rethink, and rework.

There are loads of examples I could share with you that demonstrate how I’ve been a target, why I sometimes get defensive, what was the resulting outcome. But then I’d be writing a defensive blog post about defensiveness.

So I simply want to say that defensiveness is not a virtue, it’s a choice. There are costs and there are benefits, so choose wisely.

Or you may end up living in the Land of Defensiveness and believe me when I say this, you don’t want to live there.