Before I became a Computer Science major and aspiring software craftsman, I was very much into reading what many people would consider “the classics”. Whether it was the Iliad and the Odyssey or A Brief History of Time, I have always been fascinated by works of literature that had such significant content or perspectives on the world that they were revered throughout centuries as “the classics”.

So when I came across this pattern, Study the Classics, I immediately resonated with the context they put forth and their motivation for including it in their book. The solution / action which they suggest to us budding apprentices is to collaborate with others and ask about a concept unfamiliar to us and to try and seek out the book which that concept was written about.

Immediately my mind drifted back to learning the Gang of Four’s software design pattern book, which I know for a fact to be highly revered and considered one of the “classic texts” in our craft. Even when I first read it for school assignments, I was enamored by how rich the concepts were and how articulately they were explained. My learning and overall understanding of software development as a whole is unquestionably markedly better than it ever would have been had I not been exposed to this book.

At the same time, I am aware that as good as this book is, and as valuable and timeless as the information in it is, it is definitely not a holy bible for software developers. There can not exist one text to rule them all, because there is no single entity capable of compiling everything we would possibly want or need to know into a single source. So in the future I will definitely seek out multiple individuals or groups of authors who are very well known and revered in our field, so I can add their works to the collection of books I need to read to be as knowledgeable and as prepared as possible for the uncertain road that lies ahead of me in my journey to competence in software development.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Bit by Bit by rdentremont58 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

One of the many proverbs which I was raised on that I think about to this day when I am trying (and often struggling) to learn something new and master it, is “practice doesn’t make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect”. And while perfection is an impossible goal to set for oneself, the idea that it is important to analyze how you are practicing is instrumental in developing your skills.

This apprenticeship pattern “Learn How You Fail” speaks volumes to this idea. The main idea the authors are trying to impart is to not only accept that perfection is an impractical goal to strive towards, but to analyze and remember the qualities or areas that make you fail. By applying the practice of becoming aware of what you don’t know that you don’t know, my perspective and ultimate success will be much better for it.

Specifically, the authors make it a point to demonstrate this practice by suggesting to create an implementation of a common problem, in this case binary search, in a simple text editor. Once the problem is implemented we are to design tests and iterate the code until we believe it is perfect and only then can we compile and run the tests. The focus of this exercise is to illustrate that even when we think something is complete or as perfect as possible, there will be gaps in our knowledge that we are not aware of, and applying this practice will make you more familiar with the holes in our understanding, allowing us to get a better view of ourselves and our limitations, with the goal of overcoming them.

This apprenticeship pattern definitely spoke to me, because I am very interested with not only the concrete skills in software development, but also the process of learning and finding new ways to learn more efficiently. One quote from this section of the book which stuck with me because of its blunt honesty was “someone who has never failed at anything has either avoided pushing the boundaries of their abilities or has learned to overlook their own mistakes”. I will definitely be taking this lesson to heart and do my best to get as accurate of a self-assessment as possible, so I can practice honing my skills as perfectly as possible.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Bit by Bit by rdentremont58 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

One thing that was brought to my attention when going through the computer science / software development major, was that many of us suffer from what I was told was “impostor syndrome”; the persistent feeling that I do not know anywhere near enough, and that fear that your are a hack or a fake. While this persistent fear is definitely a symptom of inexperience, it nevertheless is a challenge to gaining confidence in our abilities.

Thankfully the authors of Apprenticeship Patterns have developed a pattern for dealing with this fear in the real world. Their advice is when you feel overwhelmed by the volume of information you don’t understand yet, you should temporarily “retreat into competence”. By taking a short time to work on some problem which you do know well, you can reset your perspective and freshen your resolve to tackle the new challenges, bounding back like “a rock in a catapult”, using the backwards momentum to launch yourself even further than you would have gone originally.

While this is definitely a helpful strategy for compartmentalizing our learning experience, too much reliance on this pattern will result in mediocrity, as you would hardly make any meaningful progress and your skill as a craftsman will stagnate. The authors acknowledge this, and definitely warn against it, suggesting that retreating into competence should only be done with set time restrictions before we move forward again. Time boxing in this way will ensure we can regain our confidence and composure while at the same time making sure that we are always driving forward.

I definitely appreciate this pattern though and will definitely be applying it in the future to keep myself on track. It is remarkably helpful to be able to, as the authors put it “overcome the fear of your own incompetence”. By taking one step back and two steps forward, we can continue the march of progress at a more comfortable pace, and hopefully alleviate some of the fears and overwhelming feeling when facing the vastly expanding world of software development. This is definitely a pattern I have subconsciously been applying previously, but I will definitely make a more conscious effort to use it and time box myself properly to ensure stable progress.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Bit by Bit by rdentremont58 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

In their chapter dedicated to Perceptual Learning, the authors offer some good advice under the apprenticeship pattern “Expand Your Bandwidth”. This pattern stood out to me because the main focus is on improving the learning process itself, not just skill building exercises.

The situation which the authors describe for us is an analogy which says that we as apprentices spend gain our knowledge by “drinking steadily through a straw”, and the fact that “there are seasons in an apprenticeship when one must drink from the fire hose of information”. This spoke to me because the fire hose metaphor is definitely how I feel. While it is important to take your time and learn the necessary development skills to their fullest extent, there are times in which we as apprentices need to open the flood gates of information and learn new skills and technologies as fast as humanly possible.

The reason why this pattern is called “Expand Your Bandwidth” is because that is the solution the authors provide for applying this pattern. They recommend a number of platforms such as a Google blog aggregator, following organizations on Twitter, as well as joining a technical conference whenever possible. I appreciate this advice, because it definitely makes sense to me to utilize the internet as much as possible as a vehicle for exposing us to as much information as possible, allowing us to accelerate our learning.

One important distinction or warning that the authors provide us budding apprentices is to not only know how to improve our volume and velocity of learning but to also know when to turn that off, and begin drinking from the proverbial straw again. While it is integral to be able to learn a vast amount of information efficiently, it is equally important to know when to slow down and focus more deeply on a smaller volume of data, allowing necessary skill development to accelerate as opposed to a broader learning approach.

This pattern definitely made an impression on me, and I will have to start applying that by taking up the authors advice to join a community or forum. Personally, I think I will begin by learning about contemporary industry related statistics provided by popular software development sites like stack overflow, etc.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Bit by Bit by rdentremont58 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

While most of the Apprenticeship Patterns  I have read thus far are mainly focused on developing long term skills with an internal locus of control, as many of these patterns’ goal is to change our perspective to be more successful and adaptable to the software development industry. What I like most about this pattern, “find mentors”, is that the authors give good advice for branching out socially into the software development community by finding skilled individuals who can serve as mentors that can use their perspective and experience to catalyze the growth of our skills.

What spoke out most to me about this pattern and the reason I decided to write about it was their quote which seemed to me to encapsulate exactly the meaning of what they were going after; “Your apprenticeship is unlikely to happen in isolation”. While it is ultimately up to us as apprentices to take responsibility for our own development, there is an immense value in finding someone else who is worlds more experienced than you to show you the ropes and use the benefit of their experience to learn the best ways to do certain things or pitfalls to avoid.

The authors give a lot of good advice which I would not have thought about without reading this pattern. First, they highlight not only the importance of finding mentors but also the difficulties associated with finding something. Not only is there the risk that the individual is not interested in mentoring an apprentice, but it can also be difficult to find such a suitable person. The solution the authors provided is to start out by lurking at online forums related to the field and topics that we are going into. After lurking and getting a good sense of the community and their values, then it is good to start discussing on threads with people, and even asking for advice.

What I learned from this pattern is the importance of finding a skilled mentor to catalyze my professional development, as well as concrete strategies for finding people who might be willing to take on an apprentice. While the responsibility is on us as apprentices to gain the skills needed to succeed, finding a mentor is definitely a huge step forward in the journey to master the craft of software development.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Bit by Bit by rdentremont58 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

A good amount of the Apprenticeship Patterns that I see when choosing one to write my blog post about have contexts, situations, and descriptions of people who are confident in their programming abilities, have a defined role on a development team, and are eager to get in the meat of the problem.

However, this context does not describe me very well. I am not confident in my abilities as a programmer yet, I do have an apprenticeship opportunity, but I have no defined role or job title, and I am nervous to tackle important complex tasks because of my inexperience. Thankfully I came across a pattern which describes my situation pretty well.

The “Sweep the Floor” pattern is for people like me who are unsure of the team and vice versa. People who want to contribute to the meaningful work in order to grow their skills and find a defined place on the team, but have only just began their position in the group. This context really spoke to me and pretty much read my mind without my thinking it.

The solution they provide is so remarkably simple that I’m surprised I didn’t think about it before to put my mind at ease. The authors suggest that in order to gain trust and find your place in the team is to in the beginning “volunteer for simple, unglamorous, yet necessary, tasks.” Hence the pattern’s title sweep the floor. If I can’t contribute to the main problem yet, then I can demonstrate my usefulness by handling tasks that are either tedious, not fun, or otherwise that the team does not want to do.

“Typically, you’ll want to focus on the edges of the system where there is less risk, rather than the core where there are usually many dependencies and lots of complexity”. This quote from the authors gave me a lot of clarity about what steps I can take in my internship to make myself known and actually be useful to the company.

However, they do highlight a risk about applying this pattern which I know all too well from other jobs I’ve had in the past; if you constantly are taking the ugly tasks nobody wants to do, there is a risk the group will want to keep you doing the boring, menial tasks. I have had this happen to me to the point where my coworkers would jokingly call me what translates to “Cinderella boy”. To mitigate this risk, the authors suggest to advocate for yourself and look for every opportunity to prove that you can produce quality work on a higher level.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Bit by Bit by rdentremont58 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.