Any project that doesn’t retread at least some old ground for you is one where you can’t effectively gauge how long it will take. This is the problem the authors identify in this pattern. The solution offered is essentially to have a set of tools you’ve already mastered and to get at least one of them in whenever working on something unfamiliar.

One pitfall the authors mention is the possibility of your tools becoming obsolete. If you’ve mastered something, it can be pretty uncomfortable to give it up, especially when the new alternative is something completely unfamiliar. This is why I think it’s always a good idea to be on the lookout for things to add to your toolbox.

Speaking of, I want to actually come up with a proper response to the action section in this one, for a change. The authors basically just ask you to reflect on what your toolbox is. I have a specific project in mind, which is a small game I’ve wanted to make for a few months now, but haven’t been able to with school.

Here are the relevant tools I’m familiar with:

• The JavaScript programming language
• The OpenGL standard (kinda)
• Krita (an art program)
• LMMS (a DAW)

The authors suggest five tools, but I can’t really think of another one that makes sense for this project. I think coming up with this list was clarifying in that it made me realize that I’m not entirely comfortable with most of the tools I want to use for this project. The project, for reference, will be a short narrative-focused game where a character walks around and talks to people. It will be embedded in a web page, which is why I’m using JavaScript.

JavaScript is probably the thing I’m the most comfortable with on that list, although only because I feel pretty good about procedural and object oriented programming in general. The other three things I’ve mostly only really dabbled in, particularly LMMS.

Something else I noticed writing this list is that there’s quite a lot that’s going into this project that isn’t covered by a straightforward list of tools, even if I were to take away all the non-programming parts of it. I think it highlights the fact that just learning the tools, while necessary to get things done, isn’t sufficient. You also need to apply them creatively.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Tom's Blog by Thomas Clifford and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The pattern I’m looking at for this post is titled “Stay in the Trenches.” The problem outlined here is that success in programming has a tendency to pull you away from programming. The authors quote Pete McBreen, who says “as soon as a person stops practicing, her mastery fades.” This is a pretty succinct description of the problem at play here.

In this pattern we are introduced to a new skill, which is using increasing positions of authority to construct your own work environment in such a way that you don’t fall out of practice. It’s something I had really never considered. Even though I’m used to being complimented on my programming skills, I had never really imagined stable work in software development at anything more than an entry level. In retrospect, I’m not really sure why.

Unlike some of these patterns, I think this one is a lot harder to disagree with. It doesn’t offer many opinions on what honing your craft entails, only noting that you need hands-on practice to stay good at the job, and exploring ways of staying in that practice.

I appreciate the suggestion to leave an inflexible workplace rather than continue on while your practical ability atrophies. I’m not really sure if I’m on the same page with the authors most of the time, but this sentiment in particular is one I am pretty strongly on board with.

The only thing I’d add is that I think it’s a little narrow minded to think just of one’s own development of their craft as an individual negotiating with various employers. Aside from making it easier to negotiate, another benefit of organization between software developers that I think would benefit them uniquely is that it could be an enormous opportunity for the refinement of software as a craft in general.

Rather than the same debates happening over and over on an individual scale, we could come to shared conclusions and move forward as an industry. It would also be nice to have proper training the way most trade unions have, rather than kind of soaking things in on your own alongside a college course or some random tutorial you found online.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Tom's Blog by Thomas Clifford and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

In this section, we recall that the best motivation for programming is enjoying the activity itself. However, real life work conditions tend to get in the way of this enjoyment. The solution proposed here is essentially to stick it out for the sake of your long term goals.

I liked the quote from David Hoover at the end. I think it’s a pretty apt description of what it’s like to have fun doing meaningful work. I also really liked the brief description of Obie Fernandez’s career, in which he became much more successful and talented by diversifying his skills. As someone with a lot of different ambitions, I find it pretty aspirational.

As far as how this has changed my thinking, I’m not really sure how to or even if I want to integrate this idea into my career. This is mainly because I don’t really know what I want to do, exactly. I think I might want to generalize it a little more.

My takeaway then would be to have more general goals that guide the specific ones. I don’t think that’s really a good way of explaining it but I don’t really have anything better.

What I mean by that is trying to connect general things I want, like financial stability or a reputation for talent, with actionable goals and actual things I can do. I tend to struggle with tunnel vision sometimes. It usually takes some thought to recall that the class I hate isn’t just what I do day to day, but also part of my degree. While I think what I’ve said above sounds kind of trite, I do feel like this section has helped clarify my thinking.

I’m also not sure if I agree with the dichotomy the authors give here, of writing easy, fun code versus writing difficult, but financially rewarding code. It seems pretty backwards to me. Personally, I think solving difficult problems is the most important and most rewarding thing a programmer does. When I imagine a terrible, unrewarding software job, I imagine one with no difficult problems. A position where the only thing to do is stitch together various APIs with no room for creative solutions or much thought at all.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Tom's Blog by Thomas Clifford and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The pattern I’m going to look at today goes like this: Our culture is fixated on success to the detriment of true understanding of the work behind it. Consequently, there is pressure to abandon the craft at the first opportunity in favor of chasing success. The authors argue that you should push past that pressure, with the understanding that if you keep at it there’s no one you can’t eventually surpass.

I think the initial point about how our culture values fast, seemingly effortless results is insightful. In my experience, this is a pretty significant hurdle to get over to get good at anything. It can be difficult not to compare yourself to an imagined prodigy out there.

Broadly, I think it’s good to set your own goals, rather than chase illusory culturally-defined ones. I already have my own goals in mind that aren’t exactly things everyone wants, although I have a slightly different outlook than the authors here.

I think the authors, although probably not intentionally, frame things that everyone should expect from full time employment as either incidental and unworthy of consideration, in the case of money, or even a form of failure, in the case of retirement. If it were up to me, I would be content to do any type of work, with honing my software skills as a passion project. I unfortunately need money to live though, and the easiest path towards it is to leverage my interest in technology. The authors seem to view the need to make a living as incidental and irrelevant, but I don’t really think it’s harmful to your skills to not dedicate your whole life and career to honing them.

The authors also have a kind of competitive edge to their idea of personal development, suggesting that through devotion to honing one’s craft it becomes “realistic rather than vain to think about surpassing people like Donald Knuth or Linus Torvalds.” First of all, I don’t think realism and vanity are mutually exclusive. And furthermore, I don’t think this is really a healthy attitude to have. Why should you care about your skill relative to other people? How would you even be able to tell that you’re better than someone? Speaking from personal experience, I think the need to be better than other people has the potential to be really harmful to your own development. At least, it was for me. To “surpass” someone isn’t really a concrete, actionable goal, and I think it’s illusory in the same way as chasing success in general. I think it’s better to instead focus on what you actually want in your life, and on the people in it as much as possible.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Tom's Blog by Thomas Clifford and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The problem being discussed here, like many others in this book, is something that I think is intrinsic to any kind of professional development. It’s the sensation of being out of depth in your work, a feeling that creeps into your thoughts, slowly atrophying your confidence.

At first glance, it seems like something that shouldn’t matter. You either know what you’re doing or you don’t, right? Why should your feelings about yourself play a role? That’s how I used to feel, and I also used to be pretty abysmal at putting in the work to get anything done, whether professionally, academically or personally. As unpleasant of a reality as it is to deal with, we are not machines that can churn out code like a printing press so long as things are physically working. Something I’ve learned the hard way, which this article touches on, is that you need to be firing on all cylinders emotionally as well as physically in order to actually do your best.

The solution proposed here is to prioritize something you know specifically for the sake of rebuilding confidence, rather than simply productivity. This could actually mean sacrificing productivity in the long term, but the feeling of competence is critical. Even if you don’t think this would work on you, you’d probably be surprised.

You will not be an expert at every problem. The key to building your expertise is to connect things you can do well to things you can’t, and sort of expand your understanding from there.

For example, I struggled quite a bit with Thea’s Pantry when I was getting started with it. The whole ecosystem of tools seemed extremely unintuitive to me. The turning point for me came when I realized that everything my project was doing started with running the index.js file, similar to how in most programming projects you have a main file where the execution begins. First, I started familiarizing myself with Node.js, the runtime for the project. Then I started looking at the other tools we were using, listed in the documentation, and trying to see how each fit into the flow of the program, like how external libraries fit into a more conventional application. This took time out of my work, but that time was critical for building my understanding.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Tom's Blog by Thomas Clifford and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This pattern is called “Confront Your Ignorance”. The scenario it is meant to address is when a programmer has gaps in their knowledge that interfere with their work. More specifically, they want to master skills and tools, rather than simply be adequate, yet are unsure of the first step towards that goal. Finding the first step or even admitting they need to find the first step is difficult, particularly in environments where there seems to be an expectation to just have already mastered things.

The solution provided is simple. Pick something you need to learn and then learn it. While it sounds simple, it is easier said than done.

An important skill that I have only recently started thinking about, which this pattern touches on, is the ability to know when you’ve learned enough about a subject and that it’s time to turn your attention elsewhere. Without mastering this skill, one might still go out of their way to study something on their own. In the absence of any clear goals, they may simply give up whenever they get sick of it. This is something I used to do a lot, and it led to situations where I had taken time out of my day to learn something, but the knowledge itself was too incomplete to be useful. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it was wasted time, but I think it could definitely have been better spent.

Different people have different approaches that best suit them for filling the gaps in their knowledge. Something I think is pretty important for me is to figure out what my ideal approach is. I have some ideas. For example, I think I tend to prefer concrete examples, hands-on involvement, and at least a general understanding of how the whole system works. Figuring out what works for me in more specific terms would be a good idea also.

I tend to struggle to seek help from peers. In this pattern, the authors suggest working together to learn things, which is something I think can be fun, productive, and worth trying.

One of the core ideas here, which I will talk about in a future post, is the idea of two extremes when learning, which need to be avoided. In one, ignorance is kept totally private, creating an atmosphere where not being proficient to begin with is extremely discouraged. In the other, no attempt is made to prevent one’s ignorance from interfering with a team’s project. Straddling the line between these is another skill that I haven’t really considered before, but should probably get good at sometime soon.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Tom's Blog by Thomas Clifford and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The apprenticeship pattern I’m going to be looking at today is called “The White Belt”, from chapter 2.

The use case for this pattern is when a programmer has reached a point in their development where the rate at which they learn new information has begun to decline. The proposed solution is to hold on to newfound confidence while setting aside newfound knowledge. This way the new knowledge has time to sink in before it is synthesized with old knowledge, allowing new information to flow more easily.

I liked the example brought up here of Dave, a therapist. He found greater success with his clients after approaching his clients with as few assumptions and as much curiosity as possible. I feel that this demonstrates that this is a useful general principle for learning, rather than just one for learning about technology. This is why I find this idea compelling.

Something I found insightful in a more practical way was the idea of suspending the use of idioms you are familiar with in favor of the ones that are considered “best practice” for whatever tool you are using. Even if you don’t necessarily agree with, for instance, the concerns that Java programmers focus on, understanding the community around a language is essential to understanding the language itself. “Emptying your mind” in this way can be especially helpful the more unfamiliar you are with the language you are using, like if you were moving from a procedural to a functional language, for example.

I think that with technology fields in particular, there is immense pressure to be perfect, or at least exceptional. It can be extremely difficult to sacrifice productivity for benefits that are not immediate, and even more difficult to risk looking like you don’t know what you’re doing. Still, this is a leap of faith one must take to be good at what they do. Having it said so clearly makes it easy to see my hesitation as kind of silly.

I think I’m also going to add the book mentioned at one point, “Working Effectively with Legacy Code”, to my reading list. Not much was said about it, save for the effect it had on one reader, but it sounds like something that I, personally, would be really interested in. 

Another thing I’m going to try at some point is the exercise about rewriting a program with different idioms. I want to take something very simple I wrote for practice once, like a program that converts between temperature units, and rewrite it in a completely different language with idioms that are totally unfamiliar to me. I’m not really used to caring about idioms in this way, so I feel like this is the next big step forward I can take as a programmer. 

From the blog CS@Worcester – Tom's Blog by Thomas Clifford and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.