Journal

Of engineering, coding, and journaling

22 October 2021.

I am an engineer by trade. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. And then, I went to work in a factory. In other words, I'm in the manufacturing industry. So, it must be very surprising that I would dabble in programming, coding. But it's not really all that different. In my day job, I work with the instructions in the machines that manufacture the products. Same thing with writing an app; the phone is the machine and the codes the instructions.

But oftentimes working in the manufacturing industry can feel like a mundane job. Don’t get me wrong. As an equipment engineer, my other main responsibility is to keep the machines running smoothly, that is to troubleshoot the occasional failure. Oh the thrills when I get called back at midnight to find the root cause. The morning sun at the end of it never felt so welcoming. Nevertheless, it’s repetitive. Millions if not billions were spent to procure these machineries, so changes are few and far between.

So in this aspect, app coding is indeed a breath of fresh air. What is an app? What do you do with your phone? I find its potential limitless. There’re game apps to while the time away. Utility apps help to organise your life a little better. Social media used to be the trend. Maybe they still are but it’s becoming a dirty word. Then there’s internet of things where you can control your vacuum cleaner, air conditioning unit or even closed-circuit camera remotely from your phone. And we haven’t even talk about smart TVs or watches. If you can dream it, you can code it. That is within the boundaries of the compiler and syntax.

Speaking of which, I often likened the syntax of the code to an essay. That’s where the phrase “elegant” in coding comes from; it was beautiful written. In the past, I never really like composing an essay, not when I was still in school because it always felt formulaic. Maybe from where I’m from, grading a formulaic essay was far easier than a free-spirited composition. How do you rate art? But a formulaic essay is soulless. The day an extraordinary essay stirred my emotion was the day I started writing a diary, which probably led me to write this.

So what does engineering, coding and journaling all have in common? Why did I write this? Truthfully, I don’t know really. Maybe that’s all I do these days, other than watching Netflix and YouTube. Be that as it may, I thought I should just write something that describes me, my passion and my dream, and sorry for taking up your time to read my piffle.