What a variable is, explained with a shop shelf
Marcus tells how a dairy cooperative's stock problem turned him into a programmer, then explains variables and loops using the shelves and ledgers of the hardware shop he used to run.
The accountant who automated her own job, with Grace Wanjiru
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Show notes
Nine minutes instead of five hours
Grace Wanjiru had been an accountant in Nairobi for 28 years when she got tired of a Monday task that ate her whole morning. She learned enough Python in six months to automate it. Marcus asks about the learning, the first failures and the awkward conversation with her manager.
- Learning only what she needed and ignoring the rest
- The spreadsheet that crashed and the backup that saved her
- Why she told her boss, and what he said about job security
- Grace's explainer: what a library is and why you do not write everything yourself
This Week I Was Stuck: an indentation error that took a weekend.
Transcript
Welcome back to Hello World at Forty, I am Marcus Odhiambo. My guest today is Grace Wanjiru, an accountant in Nairobi with 28 years of experience and, until recently, one very boring Monday morning. Every week she spent five hours reconciling two sets of figures by hand. At 52, she decided to learn just enough code to make the computer do it. Six months later, nine minutes. We talk about how she chose what to learn and what to ignore, the day the spreadsheet crashed, and the conversation with her boss where she admitted her job now took nine minutes. Grace also gives our explainer this week: what a library is, and why nobody writes everything themselves. Then a listener's indentation error that took a whole weekend. You are listening on Witspeak Podcasts.
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