Changing a Method of Code into Block Patterns of Art
I’ve been programming in C# heavily for about a year and a half now and I’m very pleased at my progress so far at how much I’ve learned. Teaching yourself how to code definitely is a challenge but with constant practice and persistence it can be done. But have I really learned how to code? Or have I learned how to copy and paste a series of patterns while debugging that fixed the issue? I think it’s the latter. For the first time in a year I ask myself…why is it that I can’t write an entire method on my own? Why do I need to keep checking for references or cut blocks of code that does what I need to do? I always mange to get my code working but not understanding how it worked. The problem with coding for me is, I’m dyslexic, and for us it can be a bit of a struggle, or at least for me. I have to learn things from a visual perspective in order to understand what’s going on. Tradition methods of coding never worked for me as I just don’t understand the procedural teaching methods. Also, a huge part of learning how to code meant learning how to focus, as ADD effects my patience. I wrote about methods I use to get over this in a previous blog. So to add a bit of fun and creativity to the learning progress I tried looking at it from a different perspective. Transforming each type of code into a color/shape with Adobe Illustrator and I came up with this.
I know you expert coders will find this childish and probably laughable but hey, it works. Here's the code I translated into shapes.
I originally had no idea how I was going to approach this concept but being me I sorta just spaced out of work and dived right in. Each block to represent a different type of code such as a class, variable, string or keyword was a type of shape and color that I made up as I read each code word from word. I’m really surprised at how it turned out. It’s beautiful, like…art. This complete changes my perspective and the way I see code and by redesigning the code in a way that I could understand as a series of blocks and patterns truly is game changing for me. To any dyslexics out there learning how to code and you need to understand it from a different perspective, try turning it into a work of art. You might start to see things in a way the connects the dots the way your brain is wired to understand. I think I may use this approach for every programming language and expand my block library.
Here's the keys I made so far...again this was completely random but I love coming up with new ways to learn complicated tasks. Crazy how turning code into a Tetris game made things click.