Confessions of a Software Engineer ~Episode 1

Confessions of a "Google-Coder"

Being Software Engineers (developers), or so we claim to be, we are often forced to wonder what would life be if there was no Google to speak of. What would we ever do without it? To who would we run to whenever any unintended bug aka ‘feature’ sprung up? Who would we consult whenever we needed to search any basic concept that so conveniently slipped our mind and the knowledge of which we had already bragged about to our boss? Exactly how many points would we end up with in our KRAs (Key Result Areas, evaluated at the end of every fiscal year, to measure an employee’s performance), if we did not have Google to back us up. How many celebrated projects would have resulted in ignominious fiascos, if we did not have Google to provide ideas which we later claimed to be our brainchild?

We rely so completely and utterly on Google that even to imagine a life without Google, we’ll need to Google! It’s like we were trained to be efficient “Googlers” rather than Computer Scientists in our four years Bachelors Program.

Even the term search has been replaced by the word “Google”. It is more apt to say “Google it” these days instead of “Search it”.

And the funny thing is, it’s not just us developers suffering from “Google mania”, in fact the craze goes far beyond the boundaries of code design and expands through the realm of cooking, cars, books and what not. All kinds of information are just a few clicks away. Once I learnt about the “calculator” feature in Google, I have totally forgotten about the traditional calculators. Anything you want to learn; just Google the tutorials and you are on the path of intellect. (I wish there was some way to learn ‘driving’ through it. Hey! Any actual Google-coders reading this? How about it?)

Let’s go back to highlighting the impenetrable relationship between that of a developer and Google which is such that I am introduced as “Google-coder” instead of “developer” at parties.

For eradicating every inane bug that finds its way to our efficiently coded applications, we developers turn to Google, even before attempting to use our personal search engines that are our brains. (I guess we are saving our brain cells for something bigger than these minor bugs.)

I remember sitting idly one day while we were facing some internet problems in office, when my boss showed up and inquired:

“Why are you sitting? The clients are waiting impatiently for the update? Would you mind working on it?”

Bewildered me:

“But.. there is not internet!”

Incredulous B:

“What do you need the internet for?”

Surprised me:

“Google!”

Exasperated B:

“And what am I supposed to tell the clients?”

Me:

“They’ve been developers themselves at some point, I think they’ll understand, in fact, I’ll go as far as saying they’ll sympathize.”

Such is the altruism of Google that I am sure that the students who invented Google have earned themselves trillions of prayers and billions of good wishes from people around the world. Once I overheard someone ready to donate 1$ to Google every day, provided there was such an option, for all the times it has saved his neck and eventually his reputation as a developer.

All in all Google is playing a vital role in our day-to-day lives and even wondering what we would do without it is next to impossible. But then I guess we would have been putting our brains to some use. As the current situation is; our brain cells are simply eroding.

Disclaimer:

The article is not meant to degrade the work we developers produce. It simply proffers a comical view of the life of a developer.