Why'd You Have to Go and Make Things So Complicated?

You know how professional mathematicians sometimes have trouble doing really basic math, like multiplication? That's kind of how I feel with computers.  I'm not trying to say I'm an expert coder -- few things are farther from the truth than that statement -- but, at least in python, I'm competent.  But you know what I have the hardest time doing?  Opening programs, or downloading things onto my computer, or turning a computer on/off.  This blog post is about my battle with, and eventual triumph over, basic computer functions.

One of the things that separates the Banneker Institute from REU (Research Experience for Undergrads) programs is that we spend three hours every day taking classes.  Topics for those classes range from Interferometry to Proposal Writing, but for the first few weeks, we're learning how to code in Python. Yesterday, our lessons revolved around using Github, which, as far as I can understand it, is like Facebook and Google Docs for coding.  Users put their code up on their profiles for others to see and, if the profile is public, edit.

Github can be used both online and from the terminal (unix) or command prompt (windows).  The catch is that Macs come with Git (the program) already installed, and Windows don't.  And no matter how many times I try to download things onto my computer, or how intuitive the source website tries to be, downloading is always a struggle.  But I did it! At least, I think I did. Typing "git" onto my command line no longer returns a giant red error message, so I'm going to put this one in the success column.

The next basic-but-near-impossible-to-overcome obstacle was put up by the CfA ([Harvard-Smithsonian] Center for Astrophysics).  In order to fit the transit light curves for the planets in Kepler-186, I need to use my advisor's server, which means I have to remotely connect to the CfA's network from my computer.  This is so ridiculously complicated. I guess it makes sense to be super secure; there is some top-notch science being done on that network. But they sure do make it hard for students!  Not so hard, though, that I couldn't figure it out (after about an hour and with lots of help from my advisor and the CfA helpdesk).  Now I can keep doing the science!

Finally, as if the first two weren't enough, I had to download LaTeX.  For those not familiar with LaTeX, it's basically a word processor, but it's really good at formatting things for science writing, especially equations.  This is another one of those programs that generally comes pre-installed on a Mac, but needs to be downloaded onto a Windows machine.  After I downloaded it, I spent a while with my advisor figuring out where the file was on my computer and how to get it to save changes to the template he gave me.  So. Much. Strugglebussing.

I've been told so many times by so many people that most of these problems wouldn't actually be problems if I used a Mac instead of a Windows machine.  I don't want to fall into the trap of operating system elitism because Macs are great, but I'm a Windows person.  My computer, Sinead, and I have been through a lot together, and though I might not always be on Team Windows, I'm not quite ready to betray my allegiances yet.  As I told my advisor today, "If I can do research on a Wondows computer, I can do anything!"  And in case I start to doubt that, I have some inspirational music to bring me back.