Hello World - Now With Goals!
Hello World - Now with Goals
Hello everyone. My name is Tony. I am currently in a Ph.D. program for drug discovery in Taiwan. Why Taiwan? Well, a series of life choices fresh from university led me there. I did not get a start into my field of study overnight. I am a late bloomer. And still learning. Or at least trying to!
I specialize in cheminformatics - using computers to sort and categorize molecules. There’s a lot of good software out there that can help anyone interested into getting into the field. That includes both paid versions, such as Schrodiner’s Maestro, or open source software such as the wonderful suite available from the University of Hamburg. Those tools are great! But I quickly realized that relying on software, as good as they can be, can be very limiting. What if I have an idea that does not fit the available software? What if I want to make modifications to the figures I make? What if I want to try a new screening protocol? There is only one way to do these things - coding! And learning to code requires a lot of practice.
I know that with experience. I have tried learning ot code multiple times in my life. Each time I have failed. There is a whole host of reasons. Maybe the language I chose was not for me. Java, is great, but at the time I can barely wrap my head around it. I tried making a small iOS app in the early days of the iPhone, which used UIKit. No dice. When Apple transitioned into Swift UI, I thought “Great! A new start!” Only to fail horribly.
It was not until I got into the Ph.D. program (and again, I started late!) that I finally tried and… well I did not succeed, but I got way further than before.
What helped was having a project and actually sticking with it. Well, what really helped is that I found a lot of examples online tackling similar problems I had. People writing about their code, sharing new tools and packages, and how to solve them. All of this helped make things simple enough for me to at least get started.
For that, I am forever grateful.
That brings me to this blog. I will use it as a place to practice coding, my thinking and thought processes, what I am interested in, and hopefully, as a way to share with others.
This will be my way of paying it forward.
And barring that, it will be a good place to showcase my failures to the world. I’m ok with that too.