This apprenticeship pattern might be one of the most important ones in the book because it is something that can be applied to any aspect of life, especially for software development. You need to practice your craft and work on improving it by practicing it each and every day or at least the times when you can in an environment without interruptions or deadlines to help you focus. Software architects need to make mistakes to learn and they need to practice in order to learn. The mindset for this type of approach is to always be ready to perform and be as prepared as you can. If you don’t take action on what you need to know, then you will just be stagnant and stuck in the same place. The pattern doesn’t only talk about practice to improve, but talks about practicing in the best way. You need to try and practice in the best way possible by getting periodic feedback or getting more analysis on your mistakes. Practice will be come permanent in the wrong if you don’t constantly focus on way to improve the way you practice to learn in a more efficient way. This is why it says to practice in a relaxed environment so when you make mistakes you are comfortable with making mistakes and not burdened by it.

I think the biggest takeaway and thing I would add to this pattern is that the only way to learn is by doing and not focusing immensely on theoretical. Anyone can learn the theoretic aspect of software in a short period of time, but there takes more effort and practice to learn the practical aspect since you learn by doing. If someone were to learn all the rules and basics of a sport, but not practice actually playing the sport, then they will not be good at the sport. This is very similar to developing software, since you need to learn the theoretical aspect, but in order to be good you need to keep on practicing and learning. It is essential to always be prepared and up to date with how to learn and the most efficient way to learn a specific software. Overall, the end goal is improvement and to learn to adapt and adjust as time goes on for the most out of your software journey.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Roller Coaster Coding Journey by fbaig34 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

What this apprenticeship pattern talks about is completely different from a typical software architect approach. This pattern talks about what you should do if as you go on the long road and your journey as a software developer, you stumble on something different that you feel would be beneficial towards. It gives an example of how some software developer completely left software development to teach surfing half way across the world. There are many examples and situations as to why someone may not want to be software architect anymore. However, no matter the situation, this pattern talks about how it isn’t a good decision to just burn bridges and forget everything you learned on your journey in developing code and all these other technologies that you put in time to learn. You had many systems that you learned to do things and implemented them in order to do things faster and be able to learn many new things at a faster. Instead of just leaving all this behind, the pattern says to use all that knowledge and move forward to apply it in your new field whichever direction that may be. It is never helpful to just forget everything if you start something new but to learn from your experiences.

This pattern may seem kind of odd to software developers and architects since they want to develop code, but this can be helpful down the line. I would say if there is something you like differently down the road then this pattern will be very helpful. It does not need to be specifically about completely changing fields and you entire lifestyle till then. It can also be related fields in computer science and the direction you want to take. Let’s say you were a software developer for many years, but there comes a time where you are more interested in the big data field and want to make a switch. You feel it will be more beneficial to your life so whatever the reason be, you can still hold on to the principle as a full time coder and applying to the other field. In this way a lot of things are connected and it will be helpful to manage change. The main thing I would say in life is to be comfortable with the idea that you may not be familiar with the change at the moment but you have to trust the path you will take to find those solutions.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Roller Coaster Coding Journey by fbaig34 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This apprenticeship pattern is called expose your ignorance and the name for it is kind of straight forward but it is an important matter for a software craftsman. Often times there are many things that a software craftsman does not know and the goal is to find out the things they don’t know and learn about. They need to gain more experience with the new technology and not be shy about learning. Exposing your ignorance means being able to put your ego aside and write down things that you currently aren’t capable of doing so you can move forward and learn about them. Also when working with teams, it is important to communicate to your client or product owner that the work you are doing requires a learning process and don’t just tell them you know what the technology is already. This way you will build stronger relationships over time. The goal is to find a balance between not knowing a certain thing and being able to learn it.

I think this pattern is important for software craftsmen because often times people will become certain and expert with a certain technology and want to only stay on that path. They aren’t willing to navigate in other directions but become more experts in that field. However, for craftsmen we need to keep on being interested in the journey and learn more things that we are ignorant about. The goal is to be able to learn things and as the journey goes along, you will be able to master things but it shouldn’t be the end goal. The people who are experts are aiming to be masters at the technology and learn the most they can about it because that’s their end goal and it is not about overall learning for them. This is why craftsmen need to expose their ignorance and find out things that they aren’t currently able to do. Then the next step is to figure out how to learn it and create a learning guide that will work for them. Overall, this is an important pattern for craftsmen to improve their knowledge.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Roller Coaster Coding Journey by fbaig34 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

What this apprenticeship pattern starts off talking about is how you have been developing extraordinary code for years, meeting the standard for the company, but all of a sudden you are offered a management position which will in fact take you away from coding into another direction. Now the pattern states that this may be tempting and show that you are leveling up, but it is actually sort of an illusion in a way. You may feel that a promotion will help you out, but in this case it is taking away from the journey you have took so far and the motivation to be a good programmer. When you take the promotion, then you will start deteriorating in the skill of programming slowly as time passes by. What staying in the trenches means is to stay true to your passion, and try to find rewards for you exemplary work in some other sort of way by negotiating with the company.

I think the main message of this pattern is important and how it is talking about staying true to your passion. One thing that I don’t agree with is just because you may come across a different path in life that may be outside of programming, does not mean that you should not take. There are a lot of people that won’t be able to be in the position of manager and although a person has a passion for programming, there are times when someone needs to go to the uncomfortable side to level up. It may be time to start learning more about the bigger picture of software development and managing a team of programmers, then just doing programming yourself. It will be a different change and the only way to find out whether you like it or not, is to try it out. In the future, if you believe that the role isn’t for you, then you can always go back to some role of programming at a different level. The goal however shouldn’t just be to give up programming all together, but to try some different path while also staying up to date with the programming aspect. I personally believe that this will help you out more with experience of leading a team and not only focusing on the developing aspect. The more variance experiences a person has, then in the future it can help apply in all sorts of different aspects.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Roller Coaster Coding Journey by fbaig34 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

What this apprenticeship dives deep into is that along your journey of becoming a software craftsman, there will be many times you face trials and tribulations. There will be instances where you are burdened with working on a complex project and forced to solve problems you have no idea where to even start. I am sure most of us on our journeys have faced this pressure and this feeling of whether this is all worth doing or whether we are cut out for it. However, this pattern says that we need to have clear and strong motivations when these trials come to our front door. Many people have different motivations as well as altering goals and ambitions. We are all developing software and programming for various reasons as clearly defining these things help us moving forward. We wouldn’t have made it this far if it wasn’t for some motivation that kept us going.

I think this chapter is very relevant for all of us who are trying to become software engineers and architects, and to understand that this journey isn’t just some smooth sailing. There will be times where everything feels easy and you feel lucky to even be in these circumstances. However, there will be other times that bring either the best or worst out of us when we face hard problems related to programming which can mess with us mentally. As a result of this pressure, we need to keep our road and ambition clear on where we want to be heading. Our journey is unique but to keep the journey going we need some strong interior purpose and motivation to pick up our head and keep moving forward on those days when we feel like there is no purpose for doing this. It is at these times, our mind is fogged up with the current problem and not on the bigger picture as to why we are doing all this in the first place. To clear up that fog we need sustainable motivations to be our anchor and help us get through and keep the boat moving. Overall, software architects will need to develop the mindset of believing in themselves and know they are doing what is right for them if they have a clear vision.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Roller Coaster Coding Journey by fbaig34 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.