Developer Spotlight: Mee6 / Cookie
Developer Spotlight: Cookie
Meet the Head Developer of MEE6: Anis, also known as Cookie. Over a year ago, his life completely turned around when his fun little bot grew to be a new full-time job. Today, we are going to dig a little deeper into the man behind the bot.
From humble beginnings
As a kid, Anis was an intensely curious person. His vision of the future was in a state of constant flux — from wanting to be a pilot, finance worker, and an IT worker Anis was always predisposed to exploring the unknown. When the age of the internet arrived, it was like a whole new universe full of secrets waiting to be discovered. Armed with only a computer and his insatiable thirst for knowledge, Anis began his trek into the world of software.. On that fateful day, a future career was born.
But what’s so special about programming?
Creating things is a beautiful and unique experience. It is the sense of pride in being able to point at a thing and go, “I made that!”. It’s the feeling of accomplishment you get after working through a particularly difficult problem. It’s the rush of excitement when you see someone using the product of your work. These intoxicating sensations whirl in the vortex of Anis’ mind as he sits at his workstation and tries to perfect his art.
You see, programming isn’t just fun — it’s super accessible too! In Anis’ own words, “Anyone can learn a language and build the thing [they want]!” Indeed, with the right tools and a healthy dose of determination, anyone can embark on their own journey of discovery. After becoming familiar with the basics, even the most novice programmer can create their own works of art and bring more joy to the world. That, is the magic of programming.
Why settle with bots?
During the interview we asked Anis, “What is your favourite aspect of [programming]?”, in which he responded that it is super easy to make a quick bot. Unlike other kinds of application, a lot of UI design is needed (animations, layouts, graphics) as bots are mainly pure text and predefined patterns given to us by the platform.
Fun fact: The first release of MEE6 took only three days to reach production!
How did he start out?
A lot of questions when looking into programming, are mostly revolving around the sense of “How do i start?”; The internet is a great source of free information. Anis used Google a lot for solutions to issues he had at the time due to the supply of tutorials and lessons that existed. Most solutions are already there on the web, but whatever you do, do not blindly copy it and roll with it. Make sure to understand the solution so you can build upon that.
Choosing your IDE is another trap Anis says, newcomers tend to be stuck on choosing which working program they want to program in, but in the end it doesn’t really matter. Later on you can always go to another tool. You should make sure you know the basics of programming before even worrying about it.
What are some mistakes you’d want nobody to have to go through?
Mistakes are those things that can push you down, where you could be stuck on one specific thing for hours. Surprisingly his answer was more intriguing than anything:
“Making mistakes is great and essential! You can’t really understand why a mistake is a mistake if you didn’t make it before. So, for beginners, you should make mistakes! The only important thing about mistakes is not to make them twice! Make mistakes and learn from them. The only way to become good at a particular craft is to actually practice. If you want to optimize that, just move fast, make a lot of stuff, make mistakes and learn from them!”
This is something that gets overlooked a lot. Making mistakes is something you can learn from whether you’re a professional or a novice, it’s a process of trial and error..
How much time do you spend on non-programming tasks?
Something that I’ve seen overlooked a lot in development is the fact it’s not just programming; you have to keep track of your planning, design new features, and draw out the schemes for the your program architecture. So, we asked Anis how much of the work he does is actually programming instead of design and production. We found that his opinion weighs towards to design above programming.
“I try to focus on UX and product design. Those two are the ‘what’ of your product. Programming is only the ‘how’.” — Cookie
The key to a high quality product is in the users experience and how easy it is to use. This is the key on a well designed bot, and should be focused on a lot more when discussing bot development. Programming the bot is only half the work, as Anis has shown us today.
Closure
As we near the bottom of your scrollbar, there are a few more important questions we had to ask Anis. Mainly about his future, MEE6, and potential new ventures.
Anis has mentioned that for now, there’s no public projects worth noting except for the massive MEE6 update. The future development and grad plans for this little bot are all he shared. Before we go, we all know what you were truly waiting for from this interview…
Anis, do you use dark or light theme in Discord?
“Sorry, there’s an option besides dark?”, There you have it folks. We all speculated, but in the end, dark theme wins yet again.
