The ‘expose your ignorance’ apprenticeship pattern addresses the issue of you not being completely comfortable with the technologies your work requires you to work with. Your impulse may be to lie to a customer in favor of appearing competent, but you should curb this impulse. Instead, you should be honest and open about your knowledge or lack thereof and focus on your ability to learn. Asking questions is a good way to let people know that you are both needing and willing to learn. Asking questions of your team may also help your team recontextualize and reunderstand their own knowledge. Your goal should be to expand your knowledge to a variety of topics, especially while you are still new to the profession, rather than focusing on becoming an expert in a handful of technologies. It is important to be able to recognize areas in yourself that could use improvement. It is similarly important to expose those areas and work on learnig from them, rather than hiding them.

I think this apprenticeship pattern has some very useful advice. I think it is great advice to admit your knowledge in an area is lacking and use that as a chance to learn. Hiding your lack of knowledge in an attempt to save face and spare your pride is unwise and will succeed only in stunting your learning process. This is something I try to work into my daily life. I used to be very scared about coming off as incompetent for lacking in a given area, but I find it is much more rewarding to admit that I am weak in an area and use that as an opportunity to expand upon my knowledge.

The only thing I disagree with is the action that Hoover and Oshineye suggest taking. I don’t know if posting a public list of things you don’t understand will help you better yourself, I think it is just going to make you look weird to your coworkers. I think it would be more useful to keep a private list of things to work on, and just keep that list in mind in discussions with others in case the opportunity to develop your knowledge presents itself.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Ciampa's Computer Science Blog by robiciampa 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.

Summary:

This pattern is based on newer programmers that have not had as much experience in the field not having reference to earlier works that were instrumental in the development of the field of software development. The newer programmer will have less reference in understanding the context of how things are the way that they are in the industry, and will be surpassed by his colleagues who know the literature and understand laws and phrases used.

What I find most useful about the studying of classics in a field like software development is emphasis on trends of the industry. Programming languages and projects can come and go, but if classic literature can be used regardless of the time period that is read it implies that there is general education that can be done that transcends simple programming or development.

This apprenticeship pattern has somewhat changed the way that I think. I know that I would probably have to learn terminology that is important to software development, especially when working with teams. This apprenticeship pattern has, at the very least, made me more interested about learning classical literature in the field. Although on the other hand, it seems a bit difficult to me to disambiguate which type of classical book to read, and which type to not read. The pattern references “When you pick up a book and the first thing you wonder is how out of date it is, you’re reading the wrong kind of books”, but I’m not entirely sure how to come to that conclusion. Although I’m assuming that I can gain proper reference via an article.

I do disagree with this pattern a little bit. Studying a lot of classical literature seems to me like a dedication that can take a lot of time and energy. I think if I want to expand my education on classical matters such as Brooke’s Law, it may be more beneficial to read a second hand source that aggregates classical laws and their contexts rather than reading some of the classics cover to cover. While my view here might be ignorant since it is only based on this short pattern, it is the impression that I get from it.

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

For this third and final sprint, we were the most efficient and organized thus far. It is really neat to look back to the first sprint and see how much we improved as a team. From us in the first sprint not really knowing much about how to work as a team in sprints, to now working well together as a team for many weeks and understanding the sprint structure pretty well. Though the structure seemed somewhat daunting at first, I have grown to like the sprint structure and the entire workflow throughout my time of working on the Reporting System. I think that the best way to learn anything, especially for me, is through experience, so diving right in and getting first-hand experience with sprints, sprint planning, sprint retrospective, etc. really helped me to understand how it works, not only in theory, but in a practical sense.

The first thing that we improved upon over time, and even more so with this sprint, is the sprint planning. At the beginning, judging what we thought we could get done during a sprint was mostly just guessing work, but as time went on of working on issues, we were better able to judge how long an issue would take to work on and the weight that should be assigned to each issue. However, even with the first sprint, and definitely now, we were good about finishing as much as we wanted to during each sprint. This means that we did a good job of judging how long it would take to work on each issue, and how much we could get done.

The next thing we improved at over time was the sprint retrospective. This ties into how we were able to do well with the sprint planning, because only through discussing what we did well, and what we could improve upon during the sprint retrospective could we focus our efforts upon improving specific areas and keeping up with what we were already doing well. This is why I think that the sprint retrospective is one of the most important parts of the process. This is because even if team members are individually good, only by discussing with other team members about your strengths and weaknesses can you assist each other, and improve as an individual, as well as overall as a team.

I think that the most impressive thing about our achievements over the 3 sprints is that we now have either a working, or very close to working system. While at the beginning of the sprint we only had some of the backend, we now have a working backend, frontend, and API. Additionally, we have the endpoints and functionality in place for the ultimate goal of the system, generating a report. It is really neat to think that we as a team achieved the goal of having the system generate a report, and all the components coming together to do so, as well as the functionality in place for RabbitMQ to interface with the other systems. It is also really neat to think that future teams will be building upon what we did, using the code that we wrote, and using the documentation we wrote as a roadmap. In this way, we had an impact upon the future of the Reporting System, and the whole food pantry project as a whole.

Commits:

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/reportingsystem/reportingbackend/-/commit/7ddbba9a43a71fa588c8b34f3ca1a16d43c39709

Updated backend to include more detail, including the containers and images used, and the endpoints available.

https://gitlab.com/LibreFoodPantry/client-solutions/theas-pantry/reportingsystem/reportingapi/-/commit/c0a121daa6e5d45ec00fa01642289677119d658a

Updated API to include the methods for the endpoints, as well as what parameters are required.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Alex's Blog by anelson42 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Expand your bandwidth is an apprenticeship pattern that teaches the idea that as well as learning and improving at tasks that we are comfortable and familiar with, we need to be able to learn about completely new and novel ideas in order to excel in our fields. The pattern mentions signing up for online blogs, newsletters, and online forums as a way to learn about new ideas. The authors also mention that while this pattern is important in order to excel in software development, its also important to know when to use it, and when you should instead focus your efforts on the task at hand. Their approach to this is to try to designate time every now and then to learning new things, but don’t spend more time than necessary on that learning.

I agree with this pattern and I think it is a good approach to the idea that people are meant to be lifelong learners. It isnt realistic to expect us to always be learning new things, as that constant influx of new information can be jarring and oftentimes unnecessary in the things we are currently pursuing. This approach teaches us that its important to set aside time for learning new things, but not in a way that it interferes with our current tasks. As a college student I have been introduced to plenty of novel concepts throughout my undergrad program, so I understand the importance of learning new ideas. Likewise, once I go out into the work force I will most likely specialize in a specific set of tools, and my learning will narrow down to mainly encompass those tools that I will end up using. Looking forward into this future I can see the issues that the authors mention in this pattern, where not expanding your knowledge base can prevent you from becoming the best you can, and I agree that the solution is to periodically go out of your way to learn about new ideas and concepts.

I have not really applied this apprenticeship pattern much in my life as of yet. A lot of my learning has come from my undergraduate program, and as such I have had the privilege of being exposed to a wide knowledge base. I do however, plan on incorporating it in my future career, since I believe that acquiring new knowledge will be important if I want to have a successful career as a developer.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Sebastian's CS Blog by sserafin1 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The first question that interviewers ask candidates these days is about team experiences. They look at many different factors but working as a team is always an important one. If that person cannot work with a team, that is going to be a red flag. There is a saying that “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. Team work gives people the ability to improve their communication skills, to be more efficient in building products and also to motivate each others.

We may have mentors and kindred spirits that we meet along the way, but people tend to think that software developers usually work independently. The problem is what if the product has reached its limit, the learning is struggling and the feeling that there are superior techniques and approaches to the craft that are eluding us.

The best solution is to find a way to sit down, have a talk with colleagues, and work together on a project. There is always something that we could learn from each other. The case that was mentioned in this “Rubbing Elbows” is Dave, who found an ally in Roman and then literally rubbed elbows over lunch as they learned together about technologies like the Ruby programming language and Eclipse plug-in development. Even though Roman could have not been that kindred spirit but Dave would still have benefited by working next to a talented programmer. There is always a certain technique that we could learn from others because we are not perfect. Therefore, it’s critical for us to be open to learning and willing to take it in. While paring programming can be an excellent technique for learning, it’s a complex activity and is not always an inherently positive experience. And sometimes it is a pain. If we feel chronic behind, week after week, and we’re beginning to despair, then it’s time for a change. The rotation may help jiggle us out of trouble. Ping-Pong programming to increase our participation is also a good way.

The final thought is to find someone we know who has already expressed an interest in starting an open-source project. Spend one day or an evening a week working together on that project. See how things would go, and seek motivation from each other. If motivation never return, it is up to us to seek new partnership where we can learn new thing. Because the best way to stay in workforce of this industry is to keep up with new technology.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Hung Nguyen by hpnguyen27 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.