http://silverenlightening.com/2009/09/22/learning-software-development-and-platos-cave/ Learning is wonderful Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:31:26 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 http://silverenlightening.com/2009/09/22/learning-software-development-and-platos-cave/#comment-6 James Cadd Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:59:47 +0000 http://ossavir.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/learning-software-development-and-platos-cave/#comment-6 That was a great read, I like seeing the perspective from someone trying to learn the technology in the middle of its life cycle. Two good points here are that it's hard to get those connective bits of explanation about why a technology is important if you don't get in at that beginning and that you're best off learning from a skilled teacher. I had a similar experience when I decided to "get professional." I wrote a list, much like yours, of technologies that I saw on the majority of job openings. Of course, at the time the list was vastly different and had things like COM+ and MFC on it. It was intimidating to see a huge list of acronyms that I knew I needed to learn and try to figure out where to start. Most of the terms you listed would require a few hundred printed pages to cover - and as you found out Barnes & Noble is almost no help when you're looking for a place to start. The fire hose is already turned on and I think your best bet is to read everything you come across for at least a year (especially msdn mag - read every article if possible) and then it will start to make sense. I recently tried that at work with an IT guy who wanted to get into software. He read almost everything .NET he could find which was certainly a help and he's now able to interview with confidence for junior/mid level dev positions. That's only half of the story though, and like you said the best way to learn is by being taught. Much of what he learned came from one on one instruction. Once you're "out of the cave" so to speak it gets much easier, even if you miss a new technology or two (was that LINQ thing important? ;) it doesn't take much time to go back and pick up the bits that are important to your work; even better you'll probably recognize that "I don't know what it is exactly, but I think I need LINQ here" because you understand where it fits in even without knowing what it does. Personally, I was lucky to attend PDC 2000 in Orlando where I got a copy of .NET beta 1. Instead of confronting the list of technologies I needed to learn I started fresh and focused only on .NET (I still don't know COM+) right from the beginning. Btw at the time I remember walking in to Barnes & Noble and seeing *3* whole books about .NET - I was elated! Picking this stuff up mid-stream is certainly not easy, but between blogs, stackoverflow, msdn mag and channel 9 you should get enough exposure to feel comfortable with those TLAs in a year or so. In a couple of years we'll probably be in the same boat, learning some other new tech. That was a great read, I like seeing the perspective from someone trying to learn the technology in the middle of its life cycle. Two good points here are that it’s hard to get those connective bits of explanation about why a technology is important if you don’t get in at that beginning and that you’re best off learning from a skilled teacher. I had a similar experience when I decided to “get professional.” I wrote a list, much like yours, of technologies that I saw on the majority of job openings. Of course, at the time the list was vastly different and had things like COM+ and MFC on it. It was intimidating to see a huge list of acronyms that I knew I needed to learn and try to figure out where to start. Most of the terms you listed would require a few hundred printed pages to cover – and as you found out Barnes & Noble is almost no help when you’re looking for a place to start. The fire hose is already turned on and I think your best bet is to read everything you come across for at least a year (especially msdn mag – read every article if possible) and then it will start to make sense. I recently tried that at work with an IT guy who wanted to get into software. He read almost everything .NET he could find which was certainly a help and he’s now able to interview with confidence for junior/mid level dev positions. That’s only half of the story though, and like you said the best way to learn is by being taught. Much of what he learned came from one on one instruction. Once you’re “out of the cave” so to speak it gets much easier, even if you miss a new technology or two (was that LINQ thing important? it doesn’t take much time to go back and pick up the bits that are important to your work; even better you’ll probably recognize that “I don’t know what it is exactly, but I think I need LINQ here” because you understand where it fits in even without knowing what it does. Personally, I was lucky to attend PDC 2000 in Orlando where I got a copy of .NET beta 1. Instead of confronting the list of technologies I needed to learn I started fresh and focused only on .NET (I still don’t know COM+) right from the beginning. Btw at the time I remember walking in to Barnes & Noble and seeing *3* whole books about .NET – I was elated! Picking this stuff up mid-stream is certainly not easy, but between blogs, stackoverflow, msdn mag and channel 9 you should get enough exposure to feel comfortable with those TLAs in a year or so. In a couple of years we’ll probably be in the same boat, learning some other new tech.

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