I Hate Coding

It all started in 6.00. I actually liked that class at first. When the p-sets would come out the week before they were due, I would stay up until 5am doing them. They felt like puzzles, and it was fun because they were pretty simple to code and because it was all about thinking algorithmically. I believe that the longest it took me to run any program was five minutes tops.

And then I took 15.053 and had to learn Julia. The only frustrating thing about Julia is that there aren't a lot of online tools to help you debug the code. So on a night of two problem sets due the next day, I had spent an hour debugging my simple code only to find that I had a space where there shouldn't be one. A whole hour... for a space... I was frustrated and angry because it was such a little thing. Whatever, I moved on.


And then 20.109 comes along and says, "Let's use R!"

M2D3: grrr... fine...

M2D4: hey, this actually works kinda!

M2D5: So, um, the TAs say they don't know what I did to the computer. I think I just broke R.

Getting everything done for Benchling:
Okay, so I just have to download these packages, and I'll be all set.                                                        *10 min later*
package not found: huh, that's weird... Internet, help me!
*gets packages installed*
okay, now I can just run the code we wrote in class.
*15 minutes in*
DESeq2 not found: seriously? okay, back to the internet.
*think I've fixed the problem*
DESeq2 not found: but, but, you just told me it was installed!

So that basically goes on for a while... And then with some help from Christina, it finally works and I have my Benchling ready on time.

A couple days later, I decide to get started on the research article. I start trying to do the figures for the results section and realize that I want to run some more R to get another figure for my article.
And there it was, the dreaded... "DESeq2 not found"

 And all of a sudden, that one little package screws everything up, and it's snowballing and snowballing as more problems keep popping up. Like, I swear it worked a few days ago!


I know I'll end up coding again and find it extremely useful, but I also know that it's always just going to be so frustrating... Running time, tiny bugs that aren't obvious, working one day and then not working the next...
It's all complicated. I think I finally understand how everyone else felt in math class growing up.

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