Have you ever wondered what is programming really is, at a deeper level than the obvious answer? That’s what we’ll be test talking about today with Edaqa Mortoray, author of the new book What is programming? A Harmony of People, Code that runs the world, and the Individual behind the Keyboard. If you’ll remember from a previous TestTalks episode, Edaqa is the inventor of the Leaf programming language, so he knows a thing or two about programming. Don’t miss it

About Edaqa Mortoray

Edaqa Mortoray grew up programming. Long before he learned how to code, he was already distilling reality, pulling out meaningful structure. Code came along and gave him a way to express his ideas. And of course, to control computers.

From the beauty of interface design and graphic rendering to the rigid correctness of scientific and financial applications, Edaqa has weaved all sorts of technical wonders. From entertaining video games to sociable communications and practical development products, he’s found a home in many market sectors.

Beyond programming, Edaqa has an unusual palette of abilities. Most relevant is his writing. Perhaps most known for his programming blog, he also writes imaginative fiction and non-fiction alike. He’s the author of “What is Programming?”.

Quotes & Insights from this Test Talk with Edaqa Mortoray

• This book comes from me doing a lot of interviewing and meeting a lot of new junior programmers. People coming into the industry, people that are uncertain of what it really means to be a developer. I’ve been doing programming for a long time the type of people I work with. We’ve been doing this a long time. We know everything there is to do in the space. But I see a lot of people coming in and they’re uncertain of really what the profession is. People see the code and they think oh it’s all about coding but that’s not really true
• There’s so much more to programming and even in the coding part is so much more to it. And I really wanted to give this overview. This guide to see everything that’s available to see all the stuff that you could be doing as part of your profession that will make you better at it.
• One of the things I think a lot of people miss is that programming is a very social activity and the way I’ve been phrasing this late is that if our technology if our computers can actually do everything we want them to do you wouldn’t actually have to talk to people too much because you could just do whatever somebody wanted. But since they never do what we want it’s an endless world of compromise. And this involves talking with people because when you’re programming something it’s really a matter of picking the right features the right way to implement those features. And this involves talking to everybody involved from the original stakeholders from any of the graphic designers even including the testers what they need from it what the users do and how they do it. And I think there’s this misconception that programming is not a social activity but I think it’s one of the primary aspects of programming is actually the social communication to get the right product out.
• I think one of the biggest goals is basically listening he just have to be willing to listen to other teams and other people on those teams and those other teams have to have that willingness to talk as well. And so I think that’s sort of the biggest skill.
• In the area of security, you can’t actually determine what the security requirements are on your own because from a programming standpoint there’s no like ideal security you can just keep adding more and more security measures. This is one of the rare cases where you actually need to involve some legal advice and business aspect of the company to come and tell you what we actually need. How much effort do we have to spend on security based on our exposure level now.
• So my biggest point of advice is just to keep trying new things and don’t get frustrated. Go out and push your limits. Pick up some new technology and try even if you don’t use it. You’ll be amazed at how much you can actually learn from it and apply to what you’re already doing.

Connect with Edaqa Mortoray

• Twitter:  @edaqa
• LinkedIn: edaqa
• Blog: mortoray.com
• YouTube: mortoray
• Get Edaqa’s new “What is Programming” now [here]

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