Leo McGrath | Staff Writer for "The Mount"
Everyone has that one person who
excels at the thing you are terrible at. The person who is a natural at math
when you can barely figure out what the word “cosine” even means. Or someone
can write a five page paper in the time you write a paragraph. Well, freshman
Dash Wedergren is that guy. He loves what many students struggle with - coding
While many students hate the prospect
of having to learn visual basic, this kid just can’t get enough of it.
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photo by Randal Esquivel
Dash’s study habits and work ethic not only show in coding
but in his schoolwork as well.
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“I first got into coding in seventh
grade,” Wedergren said. “I started out using websites and books to teach it to
myself.” The whole concept comes easily to him, and he is passionate about it.
He has his own webpage you can visit at blog.mrjimbuckles.me. He even started
taking college level classes online, specifically focused on security, last
year.
He started with a cryptology course
through Stanford’s free online course site, Coursera. Cryptology is the process
of making a website or software secure, so it is harder to hack. Currently, he
is working on a surveillance law class through the same site. “But I’m going to
start another cryptology course soon.”
He has even started coding outside
of this. “I actually code on [Github], helping companies commit code,”
Wedergren said.
Essentially, he helps companies
make their websites secure on a “web based hosting service” called github.com.
Github allows new coming companies develop their websites, and Wedergren helps
them out.
Wedergren codes in Node Javascript,
or Node JS for short. Node JS is a program like Mount Michael’s Visual Basic,
but more detailed and higher quality.
In addition, Wedergren said that
“Visual Basic only works for Window’s Architecture Machines, while Node JS
only works in Javascript.” Try to think of it as a different language, so the
different types of code wouldn’t make any sense in the other’s program.
Wedergren attends an user group
that gathers once a month at Blue Cross Blue Shield to explore programming in
JavaScript. In these meetings he discusses topics ranging anywhere from new
developments in the program to new libraries (which are collections of
pre-written code or lessons that help the programmers in coding).
“It’s really cool,” said freshman
Kane Koubsky. “I’d like to learn how to do it, but it’s really hard. Jokes
about him hacking into the government have spread through our class.” Many
other freshmen who have given programming a shot have also come to respect
Wedergren. And just like Koubsky, they look forward to Computer Applications
class next year to see just how talented Dash Wedergren really is.
