As an aspiring software engineer, I found myself in a bit of a fix after joining a support project at Accenture. I wanted to write and run code, but here it felt as if I was just scratching the surface of this ‘world of coding’ that I wanted to enter. Part of me wanted to leave but eventually I decided to stay and make the best of what cards I’ve been dealt with. First couple of months went by just understanding the environment from a technical perspective.
“I jumped at the opportunity.”
I was just beginning to settle-in in this new role as a Database Administrator that our supervisor asked who’d be willing to write a PowerShell script to automate a small task we were doing on a daily basis. I still have no idea what kicked-in inside of me but I jumped at the opportunity although I had no idea where to start. I didn’t make it obvious at the time that I had no idea about scripting but rather I accepted the opportunity quite confidently.
“There’s official help and documentation available but let’s be honest, stackoverflow is more useful.”
I started by reading scripts other people wrote. I preferred that over Google at first because they carried a certain familiarity with the project environment that I was working in. Even though I could not understand the code fully, I had an idea of what was happening because of this familiarity. After doing some reading, I gained some confidence to start writing. Writing code is in a whole different ballpark than reading it. As expected, I soon ran into certain difficulties stemming from inexperience of the language. Here, stackoverflow came in to the rescue. Of course, like any other Programming language, PowerShell has official help module and documentation available but let’s be honest, stackoverflow is more useful.
“Success is the best motivator.”
Once the first script was finished, I wanted to try to do more. And more. And more. Watching your code work and benefit other people is very gratifying and is a reward of its own. Success is the best motivator.
For those who like to follow steps, here’s the steps for you:
1. Pick up a task – an end result you want to achieve.
2. Break down this task into series of steps that your code will need to perform.
3. Start writing. Use Google and stackoverflow at will.
Atul Gupta 