My initial gut feeling about this was honestly that I can’t really see myself being so entrenched with something that equates to labor that I need to perform in order to get money to survive. I certainly want to be good at what I do, but the reading came off as though you are supposed to absolutely hone in on software development in order to be a craftsman, in a sense. I’m sure that wasn’t necessarily the intention, but honestly there are things that I overall value more in terms of learning than the things that I have to learn for my work. That being said, I do understand that learning to learn is an important part of learning to be a software engineer, and that this book does seem to want to establish good practices so we can better our skills, even if we don’t commit ourselves completely to being defined as software developers through and through. This is touched upon in chapter 5.
With regards to chapter 4, I do find that many people in virtually any occupation find themselves, at some point, in a place of stagnation and unwilingness to adapt to advancements in the field or technology over time. As much as I don’t want to be defined by my labor, I don’t ever want to find myself in a position where I am actively choosing not to learn, as this is not only disrespectful to myself but also disrespectful to those I am working with.
I found chapter 3 the most relevant to me personally, as I tend to experience a sort of imposter syndrome a lot when looking at others’ capabilities compared to mine, mostly in terms of intuition. There are things that, at my current understanding of a given skill, I cannot inuit as quickly as those who are more practiced in that skill or have more of a natural inclination to that skill, maybe because they have had early experiences with the skill or because they’ve spent more time with it. Either way, I do think it’s something you have to kind of overcome. I’ve been informed of a statistic that over 70% of tech professionals have reported experiencing imposter syndrome in their careers, and it’s no joke. It truly is something you have to sort of overcome and learn to focus on yourself and your growth.
From the blog CS@Worcester – V's CompSCi Blog by V and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.