Unfinished…Adventures in Scala
By: Sarah Kuehl
Tags: Life Lessons, Relationships, Scala, Learning To Code, Data Science

Photo by Alexandra Nicolae on Unsplash

We always seemed to end in the wrong spots. They weren’t cliffhangers — it wasn’t that there was some shocking realization we’d come across and put to the side in order to draw us back in. It was simply that no matter how far we’d come, we were never actually finished. Sure, we solved individual problems and put together pieces of the puzzle — but the puzzle was infinite. There were no borders or bounds, we didn’t know where it started or even remotely where it finished. In fact, there weren’t even actual pieces, we were creating those too.

But we were making progress. We were building knowledge, bit by bit. And along the way, it always amazed me the extent to which we would find ourselves discovering things that didn’t just apply to Scala, didn’t just apply to principles behind math or logic, didn’t just apply to computer programming, but reached far into the sometimes chaotic and sometimes monotonous, but always enthralling experience of living, learning, growing, and connecting.

Can we ever really say anything in life at all is actually complete? Actually finished? It is relatively easy to start something and see immediate progress but achieving a recognized end is often difficult. It becomes an asymptotic journey. Observing incremental progress gets harder, especially when there isn’t an exact measurement or scorecard and no actual “finish line” appears in the distance where you can hear the growing cheers of crowds as you get closer and closer to crossing and collapsing with joy. But even while knowing that there might never be the epitome of a finale (pending encores?), even while knowing that there are millions of unanswered questions, even while having zero idea what the first step even is, even while facing an impossible mountain that doesn’t have an actual peak — we still need to begin somehow. It will make a difference.

We started my Scala endeavor amidst us watching the world around us collapse as we knew it; mired in uncertainty as a pandemic infected the globe, the stock markets crashed, and friends became unfortunate and innocent threats. The best scientists and doctors around the world waged battle on this virus, seeking to discover aspects of it that would allow for a strategic and effective eradication. But extreme uncertainty clouded every path forward. This almost made it the opportune time to tackle Scala — an unknown to me but something tangible and alluringly conquerable to shift my focus towards, grappling with and making one world less uncertain with assured knowledge. Ironically, however, even Scala has no single correct path to an answer, and it took experimentation and floundering to uncover these methods and syntax. But every time we did, the linter and complier told us there was success. We weren’t fighting an invisible and unpredictable enemy but were working side by side with an acquiescent ally.

“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” — Jonathan Swift

Other intersections unexpectedly emerged between this invisible virus that was finding its way into the lungs of unsuspecting bystanders and our quest of enabling me to learn enough about Scala in order to no longer be a sponge of a student, but a true thought partner.

I learned how to deal with things that I couldn’t see.

When the antagonist is something visible, it is much easier to wrap your mind around it and make rational decisions. When in the physical presence of the “concept” in question, you have to use of more of your senses to gain an understanding, and the fine-tuned and often taken-for-granted touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing all provide material advantages as your brain comprehends. Though, beware, that doesn’t mean you still can’t be tricked! Take smallpox, a deadly and extremely contagious disease and an obvious foe. Individuals became contagious when sores appeared and remained contagious until the very last smallpox scab fell off. The threat was apparent, and with that visible threat you possess a legitimate reason to protect yourself. However, as we walked around masked in a world of the lurking coronavirus, every single person seemed to look at each other differently, changing behaviors while contemplating the unknown paths of a microscopic infection that might not even be present at the moment.

As I transitioned from working with two dimensional accessible excel tables to writing functions meant to manipulate multi-dimensional and expansive realms of unreachable data, I too had to conceptualize and envision in a way that was not at all tangible, the paths these functions would take as they burrowed in the data. I had to change the way I thought about things and not just rely on what I could see.

People only show you what they want you to see. You can go on endless quests of discovery, observe interactions and reactions and nuanced hints. You may think you ask all the right questions and that openness and honesty is returned with the same — but there will always be some sort of facade — even if it is unconscious, a shield that exists and filters thoughts, opinions, and judgements. Aristotle would probably say we require that shield — that brutal honesty needs to be filtered to a golden mean of honesty. Others might argue that being brutally honest can be the height of shedding responsibility for outcomes and placing the burden all on the other person. While it is hard, we have to be open to allowing other people to know who we truly are. And maybe that means making sure that when the questions are asked, we are open to hearing them, and open to responding with the truth in our souls even when not directly asked.

With Scala I had to learn how to directly ask the right questions. I had to learn how to precisely dictate exactly what I wanted and not leave anything to interpretation. And Scala had no problem showing me things I didn’t want to see — no cowardice in hiding the true output (though, admittedly, it also had no qualms about telling me that what I was asking made absolutely no sense with what I thought I wanted to know). But what does it mean to actually know something?

I’d never been one to “look under the hood” of things. Sure, I’d learn how something worked — but I never thought it was completely necessary to absolutely understand every single nuance. I could very easily press the “I believe” button and be able to move on, having learned what I thought I needed. In contrast, during nuclear power school, my friend Jimmy would spend hours and hours painstakingly ensuring he understood how the most minute aspects provided foundations for the equations and formulas we were applying. For the first time in my life — Scala made me want to “look under the hood.” It made me want to truly understand what I was telling the computer to do with every single keystroke and symbol. I sought to understand. I didn’t just seek to know.