Hello and welcome back to Benderson’s blog, I know it has been a couple weeks but I’m finally back after a little vacation. This week we will be continuing our topic on apprenticeship patterns and focus on one section titled “Practice, Practice, Practice”. This pattern focuses on exactly what the title says it does, which is practicing until you get good at the craft. The problem that could arise though is that, yes you rely on a mentor to help you, but what if the mentor can’t provide all the solutions for you or can’t see where you’re getting at. That is why they talk about the martial arts of computer programming and how there are spots in the world where people come together to work together and get over learning humps that may come about in your practice. This is a great solution to keep practicing and getting better so when you get a job, you will have a lot of knowledge to bring to the table.

The “Coding Dojo” part of the pattern was intriguing to me, that a bunch of people meet up at a location and just code together and help each other out. It is a good way to learn and better your self for future employment opportunities. Like me, I know I’m not perfect at coding in any language, probably no one is perfect at coding in every language which means that you will need people to help you along the way so you can learn and that is what practicing is all about. The saying “Practice makes perfect” is what this pattern is striving, keep working at it until you think you have enough knowledge in it and maybe even help someone else out along the way. A job obviously knows that you aren’t going to be perfect in coding and won’t know everything a language has to offer but if you practice before a job and learn a decent amount of information to the table, you may be getting promoted sooner rather than later and will probably beat out some people with the same type of resume as you. Thank you for joining me this week on Benderson’s blog, I will try to keep posting once a week and keep information coming!

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