A coder at heart with Robert Cooke

In this episode, our guest is Robert Cooke, founder of 3forge, a provider of data virtualization and visualization technology solutions. In this conversation, Robert shares His origin story of starting with computers when he was a kid in the 80sHis liking to build things - in wood or legoDiscovering that he could build a lot more without needing a lot more money, with computersDeveloping Video games, accounting software - helping manage things in college with software solutionsHis experience with writing code in 128k memoryWorking in silicon valley in 2000s, getting a job in an insurance company4Vs of data: volume, velocity, variety and validity of dataLast 15 years has been about solving problems with the 4VsBeing a self proclaimed software addict, sometimes upto 10-12 hours per dayHis early experience with writing software for his club, in his teens - when hardcoding was more naturalLearning later that parameterization, lookup tables etc were more elegant and genericStarting his company in 2012Same software for all customers, with a single branch of codeAnyone who takes the art form of writing code seriously, will get better with timeHis transition from being in individual contributor to delivering as a teamThe advantage of getting different insights from team membersNaming, logical architecture decisions become important when working in teamsThe need for consistency across team members..but what is right or wrongLearning from the NEC - National Electrical Code - that  codifies the minimum requirements for safe electrical installations in a single, standardized sourceWe do not have anything similar in softwareVery hard to get rid of code, but it can be a therapeutic processInsert or create is easy; update or modify is somewhat difficult and deleting is extremely hardAbout the urge to do Ctrl-A and delete.. And rewrite code from the scratchHow he balances his engineering thinking and artist’s thinking [developing software as a work of art, as there are so many ways to solve a problem]Balancing maintainability, the efforts needed and how well the software performsHe looks for people with strong math and logic background and problem solving, not necessarily experience in codingHardest part on software development is debugging somebody else’s codeMore on his entrepreneurial experience, tips on defensive coding and a whole lot more in the next episodeRobert Cooke is the Founder and Principal Architect at 3Forge, a New York-based provider of data virtualization and visualization technology. 3Forge has achieved significant growth over the years as a result of increasing demand for its award-winning, web-based browser AMI platform.Robert’s accomplishments have spanned across electronic trading, middle and back office, regulatory reporting, compliance and risk management.His LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-cooke-a7835b69/