It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything for pleasure. As of late, it’s been the odd technical report and lots of code.

Writing code is tricky business. It’s easy to get lost in the moment and forget the larger details. I spent the last part of my Friday at work perfecting my plotting macro to get my labels just so.

That’s what I find I do quite a bit as a high energy physicist (in training). Most of my time is spent perfecting various aspects of my code, be it an analysis program or histogram macro.

It’s easy to get caught up and forget what the code was meant to do in the first place, and that’s the science. We perfect our jet finding modules while forgetting why it was so important to see a jet signal in the first place.

The devil is in the details, but not just because we need to take caution. We also must maintain focus. If we forget the science, then we forget the pleasure of writing code. We forget the awesome potential for amazing advances that each of our if-else statements represent.

A few years ago, a math professor of mine stressed to me that the key to success, what separates the good scientists from the great ones, is attention to detail. We just need to learn to strike a balance. We have to be good code writers and good thinkers, or else we risk losing the motivation to do both.

-Julia