One of the most consolidated misconceptions about programming, since the early days, is the idea that such activity is purely technical, completely exact in nature, like Math and Physics. Computation is exact, but programming is not. The first is a result of a machine operation, and the latter is still a human activity.
This talk presents a different perspective about programming as an art and a form of personal expression, showing the importance of curiosity and creativity for building excellent developers.
Speaker Info
Erika Heidi is passionate about community, open source, and building things. A software engineer / DevOps turned writer, Erika currently works as senior technical writer at DigitalOcean.
Slides
Here is a download link to the talk slides (PDF)
This talk will be presented as part of CodeLand:Distributed on July 23. After the talk is streamed as part of the conference, it will be added to this post as a recorded video.
Top comments (60)
I love the artwork in the opening slide
I love the doodles on this slide! So cute!
that was an actual drawing that my mom kept :D
I thought you're live :p good talk BTW.
That just makes it so much better! Lovely!
Great quote. Loved how you adapted it to software development. Great presentation :)
It's just that math is commonly correlated with logic, and programming is this perfect marriage between art and logic... But the way they want to teach the logic part using plain old math just doesn't work for everyone! I'm totally into alternative ways of teaching logic, specially for children and grad students
I can definitely relate to the "journey of self-discovery" that is being an artist in code.
This is so eye opening to me on why I hit a roadblock to my CS degree when it came to the upper level math. Calculus II completely demolished me and I had to change my major to Information Technology. I love coding and I passed my programming fundamentals courses, which used Java, with all A's and I really enjoyed the courses. Love your presentation!
Great to hear your story! My mother is an artist, my grandmother was a mathematician, my grandfather a scientist, and your talk is makng my think about how my decision to go into coding is kind of like a combination of all that heritage.
That's a rich heritage - you're blessed 😄
All respect for Margaret Hamilton , I have it as wallpaper for 3+ years <3.
It's my motivation when I get off the road :)
Margaret Hamilton is an icon <3 One of my heroes!
I had always believed that I wasn't creative and that was why I'm a programmer. But I feel like I should challenge that mindset after listening to your talk! Thanks for the new ideas Erika!
The slide deck is marvelously designed! 😄
I'm wearing that exact same shirt today 😂
I love how creative I can be while programming <3
I have that shirt! Loved doing Hacktoberfest.
ai Jao <3
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