[Music] hi it's Mike with UGtastic I'm at SCNA 2013 and I'm sitting down with Sarah Gray who gave a talk yesterday morning on mark by mark and this long one so I have to read it mark by mark some reflections on writing new worlds and I particularly this this metaphor you used for creating new worlds resonated with me because it was it was a book a children's book called Harold the purple and is and he creates worlds with his purple crayon at well first thank you for taking the time to sit down with me and what was how did you come to use a metaphor of a child with a purple crayon? for software developments well thanks when I was thinking about my talk I was really I was focused on my evolution of how I write codes and how I write tests and one of the things I've been focused on so much over the past many years and especially the last few years is using the tests as like a descriptive area to write what I want the code to be before it exists so like the test files I'll actually be like what might be some names that I would want to name this thing and that just reminded me it's just like the sense of you step back from the framework and you step back from I have to write an active record model or I have to write an array and just be like what what do I want to write what should it be and I was like that book Harold and the purple crayon is so much you know I mean it's so much like that because he's there and he's writing again and one of the things I was thinking about with us as developers is that we're writers right that was I had thought about even making my talk more focused on the fact that we're writers as developers than I did but Harold is our writer and he's got that tool and he spends his whole time just describing things before they exist and it just felt so like that's what we do right and so just for people might not be familiar with with the book what is the book okay so Harold and the purple crayon is it's a children's book and it's it's famous it was around when I was a child it's around now it's just like super famous and it's a very simple illustrated book with a small boy named Harold and he has a literally a purple crayon and every page it's like Harold wanted to take a walk so he drew a path yeah Harold wanted to go to bed so he drew a bed so it's like what does he want to do and he just draws it so it's this amazing journey of imagination and on occasion his imagination gets away from and it gets away from him so he'll do like like this big scary dragon and then he's like oh my god I I don't know what to do and then he like draws an ocean because his hand is shaking right or like we talked about he draws a mountain and climbs up to the top and hadn't drawn the side down so he's he's like I'm gonna fall off the mountain and you know I read that book to my to my children and it's a it's a favor to my son but I change it to be Conrad and the purple crayon nice nice and I actually you know it's it's it's so simple but I even feel a little dread when he falls off of the but but you feel that sometimes in software when you're like oh this is great I'm drawing I'm writing this thing and then you get to the top and you fall down yeah you know you realize you have yourself into a great or you've written like so such a big structure then you don't know what to do with it right and then you're falling and then you realize well that's right I got myself into this problem with software I can write software to get out of it yeah so so you you you took this book and you did you have the book in mind before the talk or did the talk start and then you think the talk started and it was really the early ideas around the talk were really about how we're how we're writers like we sit at a keyboard whatever eight hours a day and like make characters which is that's writing and I don't but I don't think that we think of ourselves as writers in general as a community if I was like are you a writer you probably would be like no I'm a coder right right and so that idea and just like thinking of references about how writing and programming overlap just brought that book into my mind and it seemed like such a great and I find it interesting in your previous actually like to take concepts and try to illustrate them using simple animations and and illustrations I remember one where you were talking about how the enumerable works it was like a little factory and a little funnel and so is that something that that predates software that you use these images and these these visual metaphors I think it is I think it's one of the ways that helps me think um I'm I didn't a lot of times when I'm looking at a like a computer science concept sometimes I'll start to feel just a little dumb right honestly just like I'm not sure how that works or that the space is so conceptual and it's such a two-dimensional space like that to help myself grasp things like I'm an experiential learner I'm a visual learner so just to help myself kind of I think experience what the thing is right I will I will try to be like it's like this and and simplify it so that I can understand it and put myself in like like enumerable like it's a structure but like you just write some code again it's like flat 2d code but it's like what if that was a three-dimensional structure how would it work and I think you know it's it's very funny that you are very appropriate that you chose Harold and Purple Crayon because when you were talking about that now I think of of Sarah and her mechanical pencil in the land of software development and trying to take these concepts and dealing what's in these concepts you're being introduced to and you say and then Sarah needed to go and create a list so how did Sarah do that and then you draw you draw the the machine yeah that does it and then that helps you it helps me learn like I think I'm such a physical learner and being a physical learner in a software space is a little bit of an anomaly maybe or it's it's not the normal way that I think people learn or at least that's whether they're encouraged encouraged to learn and so I don't know maybe we all learn like that and and or and I just don't know it or I just need it so it's like my own learning aid I think there is some kickback towards that when you look at stuff like the design by or excuse me was it the head start the head start the head start books with that try to use images and broken up layouts to be able to reach it an audience that wasn't brought up in that purely kind of dry here's text here's example here's text here's example that might also be out of context or or they're just a little bit ADHD and they're trying to get these concepts and learn them enough in a short order and it's already hard enough I think that there is a movement towards breaking away from these stayed mm-hmm I don't want to say outdated but their heritage seems to be from almost more academic yeah like academic texts yeah so so yeah so by moving away from that and and being able to embrace it and tell a different type of type of learner I think there's there seems to be a movement towards that and yeah I think what you're doing is representative of of that zeitgeist that the concept of trying to get away from just here's here's a here's a bunch of slides here's some time right right right and I just come at you with a bunch of information and good luck and I've seen a lot of like I've been in the in the like the blank face position and I've observed a lot of people like also in the blank face position when you're like and it like what you just said here's a lot of slides here's a lot of text and people right yeah and even you know and I've noticed people respond well when I when I break things out so maybe I'm not the only one who needs well there's there's a phenomenon where people where I don't know what the name of it is but they it's it's where we it's almost like a mass hysteria where everybody is thinks they know something yeah and how do they think they understand and we're all looking at it together yeah and we're we're the feeling I'm understanding it right but as soon as you walk away right like what did I just did was I and I think like individually a lot of people in those moments are kind of like oh shit yeah I don't really understand it and then when I do that I'm like how would I understand right so so taking and taking that dry information and turning into something for yourself and then another it's been kind of a theme with some of the interviews is taking the information that would be for you and then when you just open it up and let other people see it right then it can become for everyone yeah yeah and then yeah that turns into a talk and then it turns into a doc well thank you very much for taking the time to sit down appreciate it [Music]