The Gist, Explained

an introduction and roadmap

Hello World :)

My name is Mitch. I’m a software engineer at Google with a passion for explaining things.

This first publication is an attempt to explain the purpose and value of my newsletter, which I am temporarily calling `Gist`. If you’ve found yourself reading this, I can assume a few things about you.

1) You have a curiosity about topics relating to technology
2) Your expertise is not in “tech proper.” For instance you’re not a programmer, but you are either involved in the industry or are rightly fascinated by it
3) You haven’t found a reliable, simple resource for learning and understanding some of the deeper concepts of software and computing

If any of those apply to you, I truly believe this newsletter will enrich your life. If all of these apply to you, I can’t think of a better source and format of this information; if I knew of one, I wouldn’t be writing this. Allow me to posit an analogy (which by the way, is the core of cognition).

How does a car work?

I’m not a car guy, but if someone asks me how a car works, I’d say something about gasoline being injected into cylinders, which ignites and provides the power to move a car forward. It’s a high level of understanding. If someone probes you about the exact nature of the engine, you might talk about intake, compression, power, or exhaust; you might even take any one of these phases further and examine the physics involving pressure and heat. This is all stuff I learned on YouTube after an hour of watching a few videos.

But a car is much more complex than that. I am not interested in fully understanding that complexity, but I want enough familiarity to be `comfortable` with it; to be able to cordon off certain conceptual boundaries and say “yes, that is generally how an engine works.” I may not have a PhD in mechanical engineering, but I can cope with the fact that automotive engines are a real thing. This is important to me because a car is something I rely on every day of my life.

My point is this; the way cars work is not as much a mystery as the way computers work. Comparatively speaking computers are confusing. We as a society have a general, shared understanding of cars, but lack a similar understanding of computers. And much like computers, there are layers to understanding the mechanism by which a car works. You might be content to know “if I push the pedal, the car goes forward.” That’s the equivalent level of understanding most non tech people have about computers; if I open my browser and type a URL, I will go to that website. But we are all capable of so much more! This, then, is the motivation for my writing.

Coping with Complexity

This newsletter aims to challenge some of that surface level understanding; to enhance and elaborate it. Personally, I am constantly amazed at the complexity a topic may possess once an attempt is made at formalizing it. What exactly happens when you push that pedal?

An analogous question might be

what is data?

Let’s take a Facebook account as an example. Data in this context are things like your photos, list of friends, and personal information. But how is data represented? Where is data stored? How does “it” move around the Internet? What does it mean to move data? Does that mean something is physically moving? What goes on behind the scenes when I type facebook.com into my browser and hit enter?

Literally, what is data? The answer to that involves physics, electrical engineering, computer science, and a creative mind that is able to operate at various levels of abstraction at different times. The goal of this newsletter is to explain concepts like this in a way that is accessible, simple, and concise for those who want to stay out of the weeds.

Goals of This Newsletter

Simply put, the goal of this newsletter is to explain topics relating to tech, programming, and computers. Part of my job will be to constantly monitor the feedback of readers and calibrate accordingly so the most number of people can understand the most possible in the shortest amount of time. Some of the answers that you will eventually come to feel comfortable about include, in no particular order or level of complexity

• What is data?

• What is computer memory?

• What is a server?

• how are websites written and how do they work?

• What does it mean to write code, and how can computers understand it. Why are there different programming languages? What is the difference between them (hint; nearly any program that is written in language A can also be written in language B)

• What is “machine code”?

• What is the blockchain, and other buzzwords. We will cover many of those ;)

• What is the cloud? It’s where you share photos with Aunt Jenny and where Google Docs puts your files.

• Oh wait, what are files? What is the difference between a PDF and an MP3? This might sound trivial, but can you answer it? People get their PhD in file formats and file systems. Can you write down 5 sentences explaining what a file is?

• What is net neutrality? In a more general sense, what are the politics of computing? Why doesn’t China like Google?

• What is an API?

• What does “ERROR 404” mean?

A lot of the answers to these questions are out there in the wild. You can find them on Youtube. But there is not a coherent and cohesive story told that takes you all the way from start to finish in a short amount of time and which leaves you with enough knowledge to understand how something might be possible, but not too much as to waste your time of leave you confused.

There is a bit of planning involved in this. You can’t understand what an API is before you understand the basics of what a server is. Neither can you fully appreciate what the cloud is before you understand servers, data, and the way that modern software is developed. Oh but you should also know what it even means to develop or write software first. You can see how some dependencies arise; my goal is to tell a story — maybe a never ending story.

The goal is to provide a one-to-two page newsletter every couple of days (frequency TBD) which you can casually read while sipping your morning latte. You don’t need to takes notes, but you will want to reread the articles. After that, you can get on with your beautiful day, but feel a little more in control over the mystery that technology subtly and pervasively weaves into our lives.

Thanks for reading