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It's the 10 year anniversary of my very first software program.
Ever since my early 20’s I knew I wanted to become a software developer. I started my career as a Research & Development Engineer for a Japanese Automotive Supplier back in 1999. Although I wasn’t technically a developer back then, I took any and every opportunity I had to program. Whether it was making simple macros, using VBA for Excel or creating calculation programs using the latest version of Visual Basic, I couldn’t stay away from my passion for programming. The whole idea of creating something from nothing that saved you valuble time was something that really excited me.
In spring of 1999 I went to my parent company in Japan for about 6 months to learn Finite Element Analysis (FEA). I was trained to operate SDRC I-DEAS CAD Software so I could use it to create FEA models of solid and hollow stabilizer bars in order to calculate the maximum principal stress usually at shoulder point location.
At the time everything was created manually by a trained operator. The average time required to create and process each calculation was about 2 hours for solid bars, and for the hollow stabilizer bar it took around 8 hours.
Coming home I was excited to perform my new FEA duties. However it didn’t take long before the job became repetitive, tedious and boring. I was starting to feel like a monkey trained to do the same thing over and over again.
One day I came into work and told a co-worker of mine that I was going to create a program to automate my new job. I told him all we would have to do is enter the xyz coordinate points, bend radii, along with some other information - and the program would do the rest.
My co-worker laughed at me and said "I doubt such a thing can be done. If it could, the Japanese would have found a way to do it already." I took this as a challenge, and this was when I said "game on". It was time to show off our good old fashioned American ingenuity!
Because I had a lot of FEA work to perform on a daily basis, I wasn’t able to work on the program full time. So I spent about 30 minutes a day working on the project. As I gradually created each new command, I found I was able to save a little time each day, since I was using the incomplete program to help me perform my daily work too. As a result, I was able to focus more and more time on developing the program instead of doing the work manually.
Several months later I had succeeded. I had created a program to automatically perform the work in less than 30 seconds for solid stabilizer bars, and around 2 minutes for hollow stabilizer bars! A job that used to take 8 hours to perform by a trained expert could now be done in minutes by anyone! I have to admit, a part of me wanted to keep the new program a secret so I could take a nap under my desk after I turned in all my work on time. I’m only kidding.
The Moral of the Story:
The moral of the story is don't let people tell you something isn't possible. Look into it yourself before jumping to that conclusion. This was the first software program I ever made. It was used for a good 8 years by people in both Japan and America until a new version was created by someone else using Abacus Analysis Software. It is the reason why I became a software developer today. To this day I think about how exciting it was to develop it, and this is the same excitement I have whenever I start a new project or learn something new. The job to increase someone’s productivity is truly a remarkable one to have. My first program, I can't believe it's been 10 years already...