Dave’s story introduces both motivation and fear. A fear that next new big thing might make all our efforts wasteful but motivation to work hard in learning every new skill and language. We see many versions of this statement by researchers like, “Failure is merely an incentive to try a different approach” by Carol Dweck or “recognize the inadequacies in what you do and to seek out solutions” by Atul Gwande.
However, Etienne Wenger said it best using ‘situated learning’ that, “best way to learn is to be in the same room with people who are trying to achieve some goal using the skills you wish to learn”. ‘Situated Learning’ is also the key to Apprenticeship and achieving Mastery. A man who is always working to find a better/smarter/faster way to accomplish their goals using connections between practitioners, the communication channels within and outside the team is a man who will enhance the skills of his apprentice and journeymen.
That said, ‘Situated learning’ is no small feat. It is a long and hard journey for an apprentice to become a journeyman and then Master. Learning new skills throughout one’s career is vital but perfecting skills warrants one to have a concrete learning skill to learn new skills and therefore Perpetual learning pattern must be applied as early as possible in our career path.
The biggest mistake I have heard graduates make is that they overestimate themselves. Coming out of university with bachelor’s in computer science doesn’t mean we have four years of experience, it means we have just started and that is why the author writes in the very first paragraph, “this book is for people at the beginning of the journey.” To avoid this one must have accurate self-assessment skills. We must recognize the limited information we have compared to the limitless treasure of knowledge available and strive to acquire them by learning about other teams, organizations, journeymen, and master craftsmen. We can also acquire great amounts of knowledge and skills through internet via text, audio, and video however, we must also recognize that the vast amounts of wisdom captured in the books of experienced software craftsmen cannot be replaced by blogs posted on world wide web.
“Walking the long road” teaches us how to practice patience and hard work, we cannot learn all languages by working hard only one month or year. We need to keep practicing and polishing our skills, which we learn in “Perpetual learning”, skills like self-assessment (“Accurate Self- Assessment) and learning not only through internet but also through wisdom and experience of software craftsmen who came before us. However, I do not agree with “Emptying our cup”. We should not forgo of our skills and knowledge but build on them. We should never be arrogant or foolish enough to think we have learned everything we possibly can.
From the blog CS@worcester – Towards Tech by murtazan and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.