When you’re the only one working on a project, you don’t have to worry about trying to understand other people’s code, and you don’t have to worry about making sure other people can understand yours.  You also (theoretically) know how every part of the system works, since you’ve been working on it since the beginning.

But when you come up on an existing codebase and have to work together with the other engineers to make changes, that is a whole different story.  Now you have to spend time upfront getting to know a little bit about how everything works, though it’s going to be a long time before you understand everything.  Then, you have to get to know the specific team’s style of coding (BrightRoll: NO EXTRA WHITESPACE).  After a while, you can start writing, but you have to coordinate your work, so that no one steps on anyone else’s toes.

Also, you have to have periodic code reviews, so that every time someone makes a change, everyone knows what it was and why it had to happen.   Code reviews can come in many shapes and sizes, but in the end, it just means that at least one person reviews your code thoroughly before you check it in and push it out where real users can see it.

If this sounds like a lot of process, that’s because it is.  It takes a significant amount of time and energy to accomplish a level of harmony, and it’s not hard to screw it up.  But this is what makes large-scale projects possible.   It’s like have a team of artists working on one painting, or having many writers make on novel.  Things like that require organizing time.

They also require trust.

At BrightRoll, there are two types of code reviews.  There are individual reviews, where one experienced person sits down and checks things over, and group reviews, where the whole team goes into a room and projects the new code for all to see.

Both kinds freaked me out.

I was just not comfortable with showing my code to other people.  I was learning Ruby on Rails as I went along, so everything I had written came with a lot of help from Google, and I wasn’t entirely sure how it worked (Rails is full of magic), or whether I did it the right way.   I imagined that a code review would be like getting stabbed repeatedly with tiny swords.

So I stuck to individual code reviews for a couple weeks, from the least intimidating person I could find.

During those weeks, I went out to lunch every day with the team.  New people joined, and so there were many welcoming lunches with rounds of introductions.  My desk was moved to be near the center of engineering, where I heard and took part in daily discussions of the newest technology.  I quickly found out that everyone around me was a teddy bear inside, and started enjoying and looking forward to my time at work.  I started asking my neighbors for help interpreting code.  I started asking everyone how to become a real software engineer, and what their opinions were on the gaming industry, and what their thoughts were on entrepreneurship.

BrightRoll’s atmosphere forced me to become comfortable and happy – I couldn’t have stayed shy and nervous, even if I’d wanted to.  I’ll never forget that.

After a few rounds of fixes, Adolfo, my non-intimidating reviewer, declared that I was past making embarrassing programming mistakes and needed a group code review.  And I wasn’t freaked out anymore.  I looked forward to projecting my code up front.  And I was sincerely happy when people pointed out things that were wrong with it, because I knew that they were trying to build me up, not tear me down.

After tons of mistakes had been pointed out, someone in the group said, “So this is your first time using Rails?”

“Yeah,” I said, “And Ruby and JQuery and MySQL too.”

“Nice.”

So, in addition to learning specific things from the Brightroll engineers, I’ve spent this summer going around to various engineers and asking them the following question: “How does someone become a real software engineer?”

And, even though we are in Silicon Valley, the most common answer wasn’t “Start a company.”  It was “Get a job.”

There’s only so much you can learn from Google, and working at a company is an excellent way to get foundational experience.  This is best done at a company where the technology is new or growing or changing, so that you will have the opportunity to participate in design discussions and architecture decisions.

But “Get a job” is not the most useful advice for an undergraduate who wants to build engineering credentials while still at school.  So, that brings me to the second most common piece of advice: “Write code.”  Pick up side projects.  Code a web game, or mess around with the Twitter API, or make a mobile app.  Actually, code a web game AND mess around with Twitter AND make a mobile app.  The more coding, the better.

Your first attempt may be a hackish blob of code, half of which you don’t understand because you copied from the internet.  But the next one will be better, and the next one after than might not be embarrassing.  After a while, you will start using the things you’re being taught in school, like keeping code DRY, using design patterns, refactoring, and avoiding magic numbers, because they’re actually HELPING you.

Yeah, it’s not the most surprising advice.  But it’s not like there are any shortcuts here.

To make up for it, here are two actual, specific recommendations to consider while you’re doing all this coding:

• Use version control, even if you’re the only one working on the project.  I recommend Git.  I also recommend cheatsheets:

• Get basic proficiency at the command line, even if you can get around using it.  This includes basic use of vi or vim.  Again, cheatsheet.

Also, read The Pragmatic Programmer http://pragprog.com/book/tpp/the-pragmatic-programmer.

Working at BrightRoll, I’ve been exposed to a ton of new technologies. I’ve come to be really impressed with Ruby/Rails, I learned how easy it is to make a browser extension, and much more. BrightRoll’s engineers have been awesome on this front. Everyone is really friendly, and willing to answer any questions I have. A lot of the things I’ve learned so far are things that they use on a daily basis that I’d never heard of before. I am definitely a better developer already.

On top of having my head stuffed at BrightRoll every day, this week TEC went to GigaOm’s Structure Conference. A lot of stuff going on there was over my head, but through liberal use of Wikipedia, I was able to follow along. In the end I got to learn a ton of stuff and hear some really knowledgeable people give their opinions on the future of the cloud. It was illuminating for me, because I’ve used AWS before without really understanding the landscape of cloud services. At Structure, I went around and talked to many companies, and I was able to get a thorough explanation from Jonathon Bryce, founder of Rackspace, on what the cloud actually is and why companies open-source their software. This whole experience is something I just never would have had if I hadn’t been in this program.

Also, now I have a red Redhat hat.

Based on Courtney of Kiip’s advice from last week, I’ve also been staying up at night learning Corona SDK by building a mobile game. It is hard, but it is awesome. Building things is what I love, and I have a hard time falling asleep at night because I’m always so jazzed up about all the things I want to make.

I got my free about.me business cards in the mail this week, and they are SO SWEET.

True has brought in six fantastic sets of speakers for us to engage with, and I loved every single one.  I have been writing down all the snippets of wisdom each speaker offers, but I don’t think that sharing those can really communicate what it’s like to hear from these guys.   Just hearing their stories and hearing them speak is a truly valuable experience.  However, I will share my favorite piece of wisdom so far, from Amadeus of Kiip:

Everyone’s advice is wrong.  Everyone took a different path.  Find your own.

So cool.

At BrightRoll I am learning Ruby.  This is pretty cool for me, because I’ve definitely always been a Python person, and there’s something of a rivalry between the two.  By the end of the summer, though, I will know enough to have my own personal preference, and I will have some idea of which one to use when it comes time to start my own company.

I’ve also been having a good time enjoying the bay area.  I spent most of today hanging with the other interns in the city.  Eight of us made it out to Chinatown to eat too much dimsum, and then wandered over to Fisherman’s wharf for tourism.  I have also done some additional sightseeing with friends from home, including walking the golden gate bridge, climbing Mt. Tamalpais, kayaking in Sausalito, and chilling in the Japanese tea garden.

It is a bread in the shape of a turtle.

Finally, here is a fun fact for your consideration: our generation is the last one which will really remember a time before the internet was pervasive.

The decision to do TEC was quite a leap for me, but I now know I couldn’t have made a better one.

I wasn’t raised in an entrepreneurial family, and I’ve never started my own company. I’ve never lived more than thirty minutes away from home or done anything riskier than snowboarding. Until two years ago, I thought I was going to be a chemist, and that entrepreneurship was some mysterious magic executed by rich people. This summer, all of my friends interned at Google, IBM, or Microsoft, and I could have done the same. It would have been safe, and it probably would have been awesome. But life’s too short to pass up once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like TEC, and I definitely don’t regret it.

Unlike most of my fellow interns, I was led to entrepreneurship through coding, not the other way around. I have loved coding ever since my first class in high school. There is so much raw joy from taking pure ideas and turning them into real products and results using just the resources at hand. This passion for programming has led me to constantly be working on multiple coding projects on the side.

For now I’ve been staying with family of a friend on Belvedere, taking the ferry past Alcatraz to the city every day. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful place, and I really grateful to have had the opportunity to live here.

Anyway, I entered this program hoping to have a fun summer, learn a ton of stuff, and get to know awesome people. After the time I’ve spent here so far, I know I’m going to get it all and more. I can’t wait to experience it all, and I hate that one whole week is gone already!

PS.  Look at all my cool stuff!