Forem: Aditya Purwa

To Kill a Mistake

Aditya Purwa — Sat, 23 Mar 2019 12:03:00 +0000

This article was originally written on My Medium as To Kill a Mistake

To Kill a Mistake

There are two things that should not go together in public: name, and a mistake. The combination of these two, when thrown into the public; means a death penalty for the name mentioned.

What would you do, if someone made a mistake? Will you kill the man? Or will you kill the mistake?

The Mystery of The Fan

From a modified true story.

One morning, John found that a fan was left turned on all night in the office. Nobody knows who left the fan turned on, people left that night with peace, not knowing the fan is still on.

But the morning came, to disturb the peace; John sends a company-wide message in a public messaging channel.

"Who left the fan turned on last night?"

John thought that someone will come up and admit it, but little did he knew, for the others and the culprit, he looks like a man holding a gun ready to shoot; in the public; in front of everyone. The culprit never showed up.

The problem disappeared, so does the culprit respect to John. But the culprit didn't lose anything, because no one knew who did it.

Now, what would happen if the culprit admits it? Will he replied to John's message; saying, "It was me, Sorry I forgot"

If he does, it means now he's the suspect again if anything like this happens again, even though it wasn't him who did it. Now John gave the gun to everyone else, pointed to the culprit.

Jane The Psychic

Now, let's change the story. What if Jane, one morning founds that a fan was left turned on all night; and he knew John was the last one to leave that night.

"John, why would you leave the fan turned on all night? Are you trying to waste electricity!"

Yes, he did that, in public. It wasn't just a gun pointed to him. He was already shot. Executed in front of the public, looking at the eyes of the passerby that ignored and probably despised him.

John is dead, so the next time Jane wanted help from him. He'd act dead and ignore Jane, because, for John, Jane already executed him.

But what if John didn't do it? What if Jane is just a conman playing psychic and accused John? John will hate Jane for what he did, and he would even really leave the fan turned on one night just so that he can unleash his hatred.

Either way, the problem will be gone someday, the others might try to be careful not to repeat the mistake. But it wasn't the problem that died that day.

Respect, trust, and peace - is dead too.

Those two stories above is an example of how to kill a man along with his mistakes. That resulted in the death of respect, trust, and peace amongst them.

We might be a manager, executives, or even just a father; that has power over the people that we manage. We can use that power to bring good or bring chaos.

This was all about how to give advice and correct a mistake. It's not just the message that is important. The way we deliver it is also crucial.

To Kill a Mistake

Now, how can we kill a mistake; yet managed to not kill the man that wields it?

Pure Intention

We have to ask ourselves. Is our intention pure? Do we really want to solve the problem and prevent further mistakes from happening again? Or do we really just hate that someone is being ignorant for not turning off the fan? Or do we really just want to finally find a reason to punish someone we didn't like?

No matter what our message is if our intention was impure. Then impure is what we will receive too.

Private

Don't ever deliver advice in public if it was intended for a certain individual, no one likes it. There might be someone who can handle it, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

If we think, "well I can handle criticism in public" - Think again, because the other person is not us. We might as well advice ourself if we think the other person is the same as us.

Don't Hold It

We might let a mistake pass once because we think it is not that bad. But if we waited for it to happen multiple times and we try to give advice then. The other person would backlash.

"I've done this before and it wasn't a problem? Why is this a problem now?"

We can try saying, "well we let it pass before because we think you will stop".

"So you didn't stop before and now you are finding an excuse to be angry with me?"

The story might be different, as each person is unique. But the longer we let mistakes happen, the harder it is to solve later. Think of it as a tech debt that sums up.

Listen

Don't start by giving our suggestion on what to do for the advice. But listen to the other person, understand his position and condition and why it happens.

Trying to give a suggestion without hearing the full story is an insult to the other person. Because he thinks we don't care about him.

The Resolve of The Mystery

Now that we understand how to kill a mistake, what would happen if we implemented it on the story of the fan?

One day, Jane founds that a fan was left turned on all night. As a manager of the company and responsible for that building. Jane needs to ensure that electricity is turned off so it doesn't pose danger and didn't incur an unnecessary electrical cost.

Jane doesn't know who did it, so he wanted to talk about it later to the public.

"It must be a tiring night for all of you, thanks for the hard work!"

"This morning, I found that the fan was left turned on all night. I know that maybe last night was rough and we were all tired. I want to let everyone know that electronic device when left unattended might be dangerous. So next time, let's try to remember turning off all of the office's electronic devices."

"I will put a reminder sign next to the exit so we all could remember to check"

No one is getting shot at this story, Jane advice is reasonable and actionable. It was not specific to a certain individual, and he certainly didn't try to summon the culprit and shoot him in place.

But what if wasn't a simple issue like the fan? What if that mistake is attached to a certain individual? A person that disturbing others, bringing a pet when there is a no pet policy? This is a harder problem, and it requires a more careful solution.

A good rule of thumb for giving advice for certain individual: invite to private, talk about his goodness, listen to his situation, address the issue, listen to his reason, ask for his suggestion, listen on what he might want to do, and deliver the advice if his suggestion might not solve the issue.

This article is also a piece of advice. I hope we learned something from it.
Kill the mistake, not the man.

In Search of Passion

Aditya Purwa — Tue, 08 Jan 2019 15:37:00 +0000

I used to think that software development was my passion. People used to say that it is my passion. They see that I enjoyed doing software development, and assumed that I must be following my passion. I think I am good at software development, that I must be following my passion.

But sometimes I wonder, was it really my passion? I started to learn software development as a way for me to solve my math homework.

I still enjoy and feel excited when doing software development. But so am I when writing articles, poems, and songs. When there is a new problem, my brain wanders through all of that knowledge and experiences that I had; looking for a solution.

But that excitement doesn’t last forever. Sometimes I don’t feel like want to write some code. Sometimes I just wanted to pursue randomly popping idea on my head. Sometimes I just wanted to rewrite or imitate random software I encountered.

Does it have to be one?

I used to believe that we can only have one passion in our life. If my passion was software development; I can’t be passionate about anything else. I have to chase and fall in love with it.

But now I wonder, maybe I was passionate about all of the things I do. Maybe writing is my passion. Maybe software development is my passion. Maybe art is my passion.

Maybe, I am passionate about everything.

But sometimes, I experienced things that I am not so passionate about. I am not excited about meeting new people. I am not excited about moving to a new place. I am not excited about trying new foods.

I believe, we can have multiple passions.

My Search of Passion

I tried a lot of things.

Doing blacksmith, I love beautiful swords and knives. Hammering nails to make a small sword.
Doing “esoteric” things, I studied astral projection; experienced lucid dream;
Doing software development, I love building things, and its the easiest in term of not requiring that much of hardware (compared to doing blacksmith).
Doing music, I played guitar, drums, keyboard, bass, and even sing (I used to have a band, called The Golden Dream), and wrote several songs.
Doing art, I enjoy watching beautiful arts; I do draw, the result might be ugly, but I still enjoy doing so.
Doing hardware development, I soldered a couple of circuits; it’s amazing, but I just suck at the math. Not because I am not passionate about math, I just didn’t study hard enough.
Doing book, I wrote few chapters of Avaga; but ended up doing a lot of rewrites that it never finished.
Doing social, I used to be very manipulative and power hungry; I used social skills for that. But now I no longer feel excited about it. I searched, what is my passion(s). The closest thing that I can call what my passion about is, “problem-solving”.

To Solve a Problem

I do blacksmith because I want to play with a sword, yet as a kid had no money to buy one.

I do astral travel because I wanted to see more of the world, yet as a teen had no money and time to do so.

I do software development because I wanted to solve my math homework faster, which I am struggling with.

I do music because I wanted to be popular and famous, which a fast way to do if you come from a remote village.

I do art because I wanted to have beautiful things nearby, which I enjoy looking at later (I still remember how ugly my first website was).

I do hardware development because I wanted to have a smart home, it’s cool to have one at that time.

I do write a book because I wanted to express the story of Avaga, which until now still buried inside my mind. In fact, during the ideation of Avaga, I invented a fictional language and character; that I used to cheat my school exams by writing the formula in that language, that I will read later during the exam.

I do manipulate people to solve my problem, to achieve what I needed.

Maybe, what I really enjoy is problem-solving. I started to feel bored and not excited as I started to write repetitive code. The problem has been solved, I just had to repeat it; that’s why I’m bored.

Passion Without Purpose

It’s dangerous advice to just follow your passion. Passion without purpose is like a fire without a container. It will grow rapidly and starts burning things. You have to find a place, a purpose, for your passion.

For me, my software development career is the container of my passion. Software development passion and problem-solving passion. I found my purpose, yet I am still looking.

I wish that this piece of mind helped you, who are still in search of passion. Maybe you already found one, and just need to find the purpose. Maybe now you recognized that you have a lot of passions, finding a lot of purposes might be hard, you might want to find one that truly fits the passion-purpose combination.

Me too, still looking for my passion, and my purpose. It’s a never-ending journey, to find one.

Hard Work — How I Become a Software Engineer

Aditya Purwa — Sat, 20 Oct 2018 13:24:35 +0000

Hello everyone! This is my first post on Dev.to, and I would like to share my experience and journey when learning about software development.

You can read the original article here: https://medium.com/@adityapurwa/hard-work-how-i-become-a-software-engineer-4bd6da9028fa

I get asked a lot about how I could be like what I am now.

“How could you learn programming so easily?”

“How could you be so good at programming?”

“How could you understand such problem?”

“Why are you so good at this and that?’

And such.

Most of the time, I would say, “keep learning”. Yes, its the truth.

My Journey Before Software Engineering

I was lucky to have a family that supports me. I have a brother who let me touch his computer and play with it. It was the good old days of Windows 98.

I would play with the screensaver (remember that pipe screensaver?), draw with paint, or play games.

Then there was this cool movie about hacker. Not that I know anything about hacking, but it looks cool. So with the computer turned off, I imagine myself hacking. Pressing that keyboard randomly.

Then my brother installed Windows XP. Even though I dont understand the difference between XP and 98. I remembered playing Rockman/Megaman game.

Then my brother moved to another city to study about design. When he got home, he brought a book with him, it was Macromedia Flash Tutorial.

I was 9 years old, and as a kid, seeing those flashy animations intrigues me. I learned to create moving sphere, quizes (remember Parampaa?), etc.

Its a whole new world for me, everything seems cool, until I encountered ActionScript. I don’t know what was that, why do I have to write it. I dont even understand the meaning of the script that I wrote.

Then my brother brought another book, it was about 3DS Max. I learned 3D modelling and rendering. I tried to render the dragon example from 3DS Max. It was an old PC with no graphic card, it took an hour to render it. Only to found that I don’t know how to specify the output of the render.

My father was a musician, so was my brother. I learned to play guitar, keyboard, and drum. That day, I imagine that I would be musician and be famous. Never in my mind, I imagine that I would be a software engineer.

I wrote several songs, formed a band with my junior high school friends. We performed on a local concert, it feels great to be famous.

The Pause

The musician life and the student life, is not a good combination for me. I feels like I am starting to do worse on my study. I am having difficulty learning math, and it was my last year on junior high.

I don’t remember exactly how, who, what, or when. But I know that I had to go the internet cafe, and type “Virtual Basic”.

Yes, “virtual”. I am thankful to Google for correcting me to “Visual Basic”. I dont remember how, but I feel like I have to learn programming. Especially when I was having problem with my math class. I knew programming could help me solve this math homework even faster.

That day, I paused my life as a musician and student. I’d go to school, learn what I can. When I got home, I would pack and ride my cycle to the nearest internet cafe. Spending my afternoon, reading through programming tutorials. I remember it was this website, https://www.vbtutor.net/vbtutor.html.

I spent most of my first time learning programming to develop a solution for my math homework. It was a simple program to solve algebra, calculate area, volume, etc.

Hard Journey to Software Engineering

I don’t have a strong math background, I don’t know anything at all about programming. My brother is a designer, my father is a musician. No one in my family that could provide me with a clue about programming.

I live in an isolated village. No internet at home, the internet cafe is 20 minutes away with my bicycle. I don’t have any friends who could help me on this subject.

I knew this will be hard, but not for a moment I hesitated that I can’t do this. I know I can, I prayed I can, I hope I can.

From that day on. I would go to the internet cafe, download few html pages of the tutorial websites, and practiced at home. With internet speed of about 35KBps — 75KBps, it took me many hours to download development software such as Visual Studio.

I would fail, there would be error messages that I don’t understand. Having no internet at home means I have to fix it alone, or wait until tomorrow to search about it on the internet.

Sometimes, I can fix it, sometimes I have to wait for tomorrow. I spent so many days reading tutorials. I spent so many days practiced.

But nothing beats the sensation of seeing my program runs. Every button’s on click event, every alert message visible, it makes me happy.

I encountered Object Oriented Programming. It was confusing. I signed for an evening class of programming. Only to found that the class teaches basics programming. Such as if statemenets, for statements, and something like that.

Luckily, the lecturer of the class recommended me to go to a vocational high school. The school is famous for having a good software engineering class. So I decided to go there.

I applied and got accepted. Even though the school already taught me software engineering related knowledge during class. I still can’t stop learning on my own pace. So I still spent my afternoon reading tutorials. Spent my night practicing my programming skills.

I eventually understand what OOP is all about. I learned about how framework works, how such library works, how part of my code works. I avoid framework and library whenever possible. Not because I hate them, but because I was scared, if I was in an environment without internet such as my hometown. What could I do?

That fears gradually fade, I moved to a city with better internet connection. I learned how to use certain frameworks to speed up my work.

I wasn’t born as a programmer, no one was. I didn’t spend 30 minutes reading tutorials and immediately understand. I spent years, learning and practicing. It doesn’t happen overnight.

So for any programmer who feels like they can’t do it. YOU CAN. The learning process is the most important experience that you will learn. Your failure, is as important as your success. Keep learning, keep practicing.

It applies to anything, not only on software engineering. You can be great because of your hard work, of learning, and praciting. It doesn’t matter whether you are passionate or not. Passionate people without hard work won’t do much. Passionate people do work hard, they just do it with smiles on their face.

I can be what I am now, because of my hard work.

Or, was it?

Would I be a software engineer, if my brother did not decide to teach me Windows 98?

Would I be a software engineer, if my family did not bought us a computer?

Would I be a software engineer, if my brother did not decide to bought me book of Macromedia Flash and 3DS Max?

Would I be a software engineer, if my lecturer did not recommend me to that vocational high school?

Would I be a software engineer, if my family did not choose to support me on the vocational high school?

Would I be a software engineer, if one of my colleague did not introduced me to a better company?

Would I be what I am now, if my brother, family, friends, and partner wasn’t here to support me?

Sometimes, I wonder. I could do good with hard work. But I would never do great, without my family, friends, and partner. Things that we take for granted, yet most impactful in our life.

I can be what I am now, because of my God, family, friends, partner, and hard work that will be easy. Because of them.

So, thank you. To all of you.