Unseen Mentors: Microsoft Access and WordPress Shaped My Programming Journey
In the realm of coding, we often associate our learning journey with JavaScript, React, or Ruby. However, a closer look reveals that our initial steps in understanding the mental models of programming can occur long before we write our first line of code. For me, two unsuspecting tools played a pivotal role in shaping my understanding of programming: Microsoft Access and WordPress.
Lessons from Microsoft Access: Structured Thinking and Computer Science Fundamentals
Microsoft Access, my first foray into the digital world, served as my first programming teacher without the code. I built queries, connected tables, and worked with small bits of SQL, all while believing I was just performing office work. Today, I recognize these activities as my first lessons in computer science fundamentals.
- Data organization: understanding data is stored in multiple connected tables
- Relationships: learning about the connections between entities
- Data types: recognizing that data has types such as text, numbers, and dates
- Naming conventions: understanding the importance of naming, including avoiding spaces and using underscores
- Data validation: learning about data validation as a form of type safety
- Data redundancy: understanding the problem of repeating the same information
WordPress and Moodle: Learning Systems, Not Just Websites
Later, I moved on to building WordPress websites and Moodle platforms, which taught me an entirely different layer of thinking. I didn't realize it at the time, but WordPress was my gateway to understanding modularity and the web as a whole.
- Web fundamentals: learning about domains, hosting, and how software lives on servers
- Web vocabulary: understanding terms like widgets, menus, plugins, themes, design, etc.
- Basic SEO concepts
- System extension: learning that systems can be extended through plugins instead of rewriting everything
- Modularity: understanding that software can be customized without breaking the whole system
Relevance to North East India and the Broader Indian Context
The lessons learned from Microsoft Access and WordPress have universal applications in the digital world, including North East India and the broader Indian context. As more businesses and organizations adopt digital solutions, understanding these concepts becomes increasingly important for developing effective and efficient systems.
The Hidden Lesson: Transferable Thinking
What Microsoft Access and WordPress gave me wasn't syntax; it was something far more valuable: systems thinking. Concepts like abstraction, constraints, structure, and cause and effect clicked when I encountered programming terms like tables, schemas, components, props, validation, and modularity. These concepts felt like old friends with new names.
Looking back, I didn't realize I was already preparing my mind for programming, slowly, imperfectly, and unconsciously. Learning doesn't always look like learning until years later, when everything suddenly makes sense.