Education Ecosystem Blog

Who’s Cathrax? An accountant in normal life who’s learning Swift. What prompted her decision and what message does she have for her viewers on Livecoding.tv? Let’s find out:

Real name: Cathrax

Alter ego: Cathrax

Location: Portland, United States

Powers/abilities: Swift

Username: https://www.livecoding.tv/cathrax/

Questions:

Q: What made you learn to code?

A: Programming is becoming more and more accessible over time. Nowadays there are so many tutorials online, and you can even hire a tutor or teacher over the Internet now. You never have to leave the house!

Q: What was the first programming language you learned and why did you choose that language?

A: The first language I’m serious about learning is Swift, for a few reasons: 1. it is quick and painless to get set up – download Xcode and that is your development environment. It comes with everything you need to get started; 2. mobile is the future; phones will become more and more powerful, are always portable, and creating apps for such a powerful device is appealing; 3. Apple has stated they will support Swift for quite some time to come.

Q: Tell us about some of the products you’ve built and how was the experience?

A: I’ve built several apps from tutorials; these apps have included informational lists, games, and photo viewers. The experience was OK. It has given me an idea to start a “Programming Sucks!” podcast.

Q: When did you first hear about Livecoding.tv? What was your first reaction?

A: I’m not sure when I first heard about Livecoding.tv, but my first reaction was “how do I get started?!” 😉

Q: If you were one of co-founders what different would you like Livecoding.tv to do?

A: Focus on usability. It’s a neat idea – which is why people use it – but it will attract many more people if you can get to a point where an average person can seamlessly, painlessly navigate the site. Features will bring in new people, but good usability will keep people around.

Q: As a streamer, do you have anything to say to your viewers?

A: I love you <3

Q: Where do you see livecoding.tv in 3 years?

A: Like Twitch, but for coders!

Q: Is coding that dry/boring as is perceived by common people?

A: YES IT IS. It is extremely dry and abstract, much like a sore throat you can’t describe because you’ve lost your voice – it’s that dry. It is, however, too frustrating to be considered boring, so there’s that.

Q: If you were a programming language, which one would you be? And why?

A: Javascript. Sometimes I make no sense, but I’m there for you when you need me (in theory).

Q: Programmers don’t have social life. Negate/contradict that assumption?

A: This is actually false. Programmers do have a social life – online. Think WoW raids but in a Matrixy world of fluorescent green 1’s and 0’s rather than Azeroth. Programmers have their own versions of quests, loot, and even PvP battles. Their drops are newly-implemented features and their XP is every line debugged. Their elixirs consist of pizza and soda.

Q: Do you think in general, ladies make better programmers than men? Why?

A: No, I don’t. That’s not to say I think women make worse programmers than men, either. Programming requires a tremendous amount of abstraction. Abstract thinking is challenging for all people – even in natural language learning, students often encounter a point at which they stop learning as quickly when it comes time to learn how to express more abstract ideas and concepts, regardless of gender. It is easy to interact with the physical, tangible world around us that we can see, hear, and touch; it is difficult to interact with ideas we can’t directly observe, like a program – and this is true for everyone.

That said, the best programmers are persistent and keep trying even after being told “you suck!” and beaten to a pulp by their computer. They just don’t know when to quit.

Check out one of Cathrax’s recent streams: Fun Facts App