Category Archives: CS-448

Apprenticeship Pattern: The Deep End

The Deep End is an important pattern to consider in any profession, especially in computer science. It reminds us that the only way to grow and improve our skills is to take on new challenges that may be outside of our current abilities. This can be daunting, but it is essential to keep pushing us to continue learning and improving.

One aspect of this pattern that I found particularly useful is the suggestion to break down tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces. This not only helps to make the task seem less overwhelming, but it also allows us to focus on making small incremental progress over time. By taking small steps towards a larger goal, we can see tangible progress and stay motivated throughout the process.

Another important point made by the pattern is the need to seek help and guidance from more experienced colleagues. It can be easy to feel intimidated or embarrassed to ask for help, but it is crucial to remember that everyone starts somewhere. We all have areas where we can improve, and seeking help from others can provide valuable insights and guidance. By doing so, we can learn from the experience of others and apply it to our own work.

Overall, I found The Deep End to be a helpful and thought-provoking pattern. It has reminded me of the importance of continually challenging myself to improve my skills and to seek guidance and support when needed. As I continue on my path as a computer science apprentice, I plan to keep this pattern in mind and take on new challenges whenever possible.

However, I do believe that there is a balance to be struck when taking on challenging tasks. While it is essential to push ourselves to grow and develop new skills, it is also crucial to be mindful of our limitations and not take on more than we can handle. We need to be responsible for managing our own risk and taking steps to minimize it where possible. Overall, I believe that The Deep End is an important pattern to keep in mind, but it should be approached with a balanced and mindful mindset.

 

From the blog Zed's Blog by Lord Zed and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Apprenticeship Pattern: The Deep End

The Deep End is an important pattern to consider in any profession, especially in computer science. It reminds us that the only way to grow and improve our skills is to take on new challenges that may be outside of our current abilities. This can be daunting, but it is essential to keep pushing us to continue learning and improving.

One aspect of this pattern that I found particularly useful is the suggestion to break down tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces. This not only helps to make the task seem less overwhelming, but it also allows us to focus on making small incremental progress over time. By taking small steps towards a larger goal, we can see tangible progress and stay motivated throughout the process.

Another important point made by the pattern is the need to seek help and guidance from more experienced colleagues. It can be easy to feel intimidated or embarrassed to ask for help, but it is crucial to remember that everyone starts somewhere. We all have areas where we can improve, and seeking help from others can provide valuable insights and guidance. By doing so, we can learn from the experience of others and apply it to our own work.

Overall, I found The Deep End to be a helpful and thought-provoking pattern. It has reminded me of the importance of continually challenging myself to improve my skills and to seek guidance and support when needed. As I continue on my path as a computer science apprentice, I plan to keep this pattern in mind and take on new challenges whenever possible.

However, I do believe that there is a balance to be struck when taking on challenging tasks. While it is essential to push ourselves to grow and develop new skills, it is also crucial to be mindful of our limitations and not take on more than we can handle. We need to be responsible for managing our own risk and taking steps to minimize it where possible. Overall, I believe that The Deep End is an important pattern to keep in mind, but it should be approached with a balanced and mindful mindset.

 

From the blog Zed's Blog by Lord Zed and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Apprenticeship Pattern: The Deep End

The Deep End is an important pattern to consider in any profession, especially in computer science. It reminds us that the only way to grow and improve our skills is to take on new challenges that may be outside of our current abilities. This can be daunting, but it is essential to keep pushing us to continue learning and improving.

One aspect of this pattern that I found particularly useful is the suggestion to break down tasks into smaller, more manageable pieces. This not only helps to make the task seem less overwhelming, but it also allows us to focus on making small incremental progress over time. By taking small steps towards a larger goal, we can see tangible progress and stay motivated throughout the process.

Another important point made by the pattern is the need to seek help and guidance from more experienced colleagues. It can be easy to feel intimidated or embarrassed to ask for help, but it is crucial to remember that everyone starts somewhere. We all have areas where we can improve, and seeking help from others can provide valuable insights and guidance. By doing so, we can learn from the experience of others and apply it to our own work.

Overall, I found The Deep End to be a helpful and thought-provoking pattern. It has reminded me of the importance of continually challenging myself to improve my skills and to seek guidance and support when needed. As I continue on my path as a computer science apprentice, I plan to keep this pattern in mind and take on new challenges whenever possible.

However, I do believe that there is a balance to be struck when taking on challenging tasks. While it is essential to push ourselves to grow and develop new skills, it is also crucial to be mindful of our limitations and not take on more than we can handle. We need to be responsible for managing our own risk and taking steps to minimize it where possible. Overall, I believe that The Deep End is an important pattern to keep in mind, but it should be approached with a balanced and mindful mindset.

 

From the blog Zed's Blog by Lord Zed and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Apprenticeship pattern: Familiar Tools [featuring the Concrete Skills pattern]

Since beginning this undergrad program (really, the CS transfer program at my previous school) and starting my internship, I’ve found myself working in several different environments with several different tools. I’ve been able to scrape by in most of them, but haven’t stuck around with any one of them for long enough to become really familiar with it. I can specialize template classes and manage pointers in C++, but I don’t know how to use most of the standard library. I’ve grown from using a couple of Linux commands in a Manjaro VM to writing increasingly useful Bash scripts, but I’m not rapidly adding Linux commands to my toolbox. I’ve programmed in at least 10 different languages in the last year, but I’m not happy with my proficiency in a single one of them.

I think that this means that I need to start making use of the related Familiar Tools and Concrete Skills patterns, or at my own dot product reinterpretation of the two. The Familiar Tools pattern is all about developing consistency with a tool that you already trust yourself with, and Concrete Skills is about developing a proficiency foundation to build on. I have some foundation, but it’s split across a bunch of different technologies, and I need to rebuild it starting from a single tool that can become familiar to me.

The tool that I’d like to become familiar with is Rust. I share a lot of the general and technical priorities of that project. It’s great that it’s flexible and able to progress and fix mistakes without being paralyzed by a need to forever remain backwards-compatible. More importantly, I want to eventually work mostly with statically typed languages, and I love that it lets you opt into fewer levels of abstraction. For example, how cool is it that you can inline assembly in the same language that considers C-style undefined behavior to be a design failure?

Now that my formal education is ending, I’m going to use some of my spare time to develop my concrete skills in Rust by working on small projects. Hopefully, one of those will be working through Sedgewick & Wayne’s Algorithms again in Rust, some will be collaborative projects on fun things that I can’t yet get paid to do, and some will be projects where I figure out how to integrate a Rust backend with other tools that I need to learn more about anyway such as web APIs and AWS CloudFormation and Timestream.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Tasteful Glues by tastefulglues and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Expose Your Ignorance

In the early stages of a career, it is quite natural to feel like you don’t know enough and to be intimidated by the tasks ahead. As an apprentice, you may feel like you have to prove yourself to your colleagues and bosses, which often leads to pretending to know more than you actually do. However, pretending to be an expert can lead to disastrous results and can harm the project in the long run. The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is a solution to this problem that many apprentices face.

The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern emphasizes the importance of being honest about your lack of knowledge, especially when it comes to software development. Being transparent about your ignorance is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it allows your team members and managers to understand the scope of your abilities. This pattern encourages apprentices to admit their lack of knowledge, ask questions, and share their learning process with their team.

What I found interesting about this pattern is that it highlights the importance of transparency and honesty in the workplace. It also emphasizes that software development is a continuous learning process, and everyone is constantly learning. There is no shame in not knowing something, and it is better to admit it and ask for help than to pretend to know everything. This pattern encourages a culture of openness and collaboration in the workplace, which can lead to better team performance.

This pattern has caused me to change the way I think about my intended profession. As a future software developer, I now understand that it is okay to not know everything and that I will constantly be learning throughout my career. I have also learned that it is essential to have an open and collaborative culture in the workplace, where everyone feels comfortable sharing their knowledge and learning process with others. It is this openness that will foster innovation and lead to better results.

However, I do disagree with one aspect of this pattern, which is the suggestion to put a list of things that you don’t understand in a place where others can see it. While it is essential to refresh the list frequently and work on improving the listed skills, I don’t think it needs to be public. I believe it is enough to have the list for personal reference and accountability. Nevertheless, the core idea of exposing your ignorance and asking questions to learn is vital and should be practiced regardless.

In conclusion, the “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is an essential tool for any apprentice in any profession, especially software development. Admitting your lack of knowledge and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it fosters a culture of openness and collaboration. By adopting this pattern, you will not only improve your skills but also build stronger relationships with your colleagues and team members.

 

From the blog Zed's Blog by Lord Zed and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Expose Your Ignorance

In the early stages of a career, it is quite natural to feel like you don’t know enough and to be intimidated by the tasks ahead. As an apprentice, you may feel like you have to prove yourself to your colleagues and bosses, which often leads to pretending to know more than you actually do. However, pretending to be an expert can lead to disastrous results and can harm the project in the long run. The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is a solution to this problem that many apprentices face.

The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern emphasizes the importance of being honest about your lack of knowledge, especially when it comes to software development. Being transparent about your ignorance is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it allows your team members and managers to understand the scope of your abilities. This pattern encourages apprentices to admit their lack of knowledge, ask questions, and share their learning process with their team.

What I found interesting about this pattern is that it highlights the importance of transparency and honesty in the workplace. It also emphasizes that software development is a continuous learning process, and everyone is constantly learning. There is no shame in not knowing something, and it is better to admit it and ask for help than to pretend to know everything. This pattern encourages a culture of openness and collaboration in the workplace, which can lead to better team performance.

This pattern has caused me to change the way I think about my intended profession. As a future software developer, I now understand that it is okay to not know everything and that I will constantly be learning throughout my career. I have also learned that it is essential to have an open and collaborative culture in the workplace, where everyone feels comfortable sharing their knowledge and learning process with others. It is this openness that will foster innovation and lead to better results.

However, I do disagree with one aspect of this pattern, which is the suggestion to put a list of things that you don’t understand in a place where others can see it. While it is essential to refresh the list frequently and work on improving the listed skills, I don’t think it needs to be public. I believe it is enough to have the list for personal reference and accountability. Nevertheless, the core idea of exposing your ignorance and asking questions to learn is vital and should be practiced regardless.

In conclusion, the “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is an essential tool for any apprentice in any profession, especially software development. Admitting your lack of knowledge and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it fosters a culture of openness and collaboration. By adopting this pattern, you will not only improve your skills but also build stronger relationships with your colleagues and team members.

 

From the blog Zed's Blog by Lord Zed and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Expose Your Ignorance

In the early stages of a career, it is quite natural to feel like you don’t know enough and to be intimidated by the tasks ahead. As an apprentice, you may feel like you have to prove yourself to your colleagues and bosses, which often leads to pretending to know more than you actually do. However, pretending to be an expert can lead to disastrous results and can harm the project in the long run. The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is a solution to this problem that many apprentices face.

The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern emphasizes the importance of being honest about your lack of knowledge, especially when it comes to software development. Being transparent about your ignorance is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it allows your team members and managers to understand the scope of your abilities. This pattern encourages apprentices to admit their lack of knowledge, ask questions, and share their learning process with their team.

What I found interesting about this pattern is that it highlights the importance of transparency and honesty in the workplace. It also emphasizes that software development is a continuous learning process, and everyone is constantly learning. There is no shame in not knowing something, and it is better to admit it and ask for help than to pretend to know everything. This pattern encourages a culture of openness and collaboration in the workplace, which can lead to better team performance.

This pattern has caused me to change the way I think about my intended profession. As a future software developer, I now understand that it is okay to not know everything and that I will constantly be learning throughout my career. I have also learned that it is essential to have an open and collaborative culture in the workplace, where everyone feels comfortable sharing their knowledge and learning process with others. It is this openness that will foster innovation and lead to better results.

However, I do disagree with one aspect of this pattern, which is the suggestion to put a list of things that you don’t understand in a place where others can see it. While it is essential to refresh the list frequently and work on improving the listed skills, I don’t think it needs to be public. I believe it is enough to have the list for personal reference and accountability. Nevertheless, the core idea of exposing your ignorance and asking questions to learn is vital and should be practiced regardless.

In conclusion, the “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is an essential tool for any apprentice in any profession, especially software development. Admitting your lack of knowledge and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it fosters a culture of openness and collaboration. By adopting this pattern, you will not only improve your skills but also build stronger relationships with your colleagues and team members.

 

From the blog Zed's Blog by Lord Zed and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Expose Your Ignorance

In the early stages of a career, it is quite natural to feel like you don’t know enough and to be intimidated by the tasks ahead. As an apprentice, you may feel like you have to prove yourself to your colleagues and bosses, which often leads to pretending to know more than you actually do. However, pretending to be an expert can lead to disastrous results and can harm the project in the long run. The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is a solution to this problem that many apprentices face.

The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern emphasizes the importance of being honest about your lack of knowledge, especially when it comes to software development. Being transparent about your ignorance is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it allows your team members and managers to understand the scope of your abilities. This pattern encourages apprentices to admit their lack of knowledge, ask questions, and share their learning process with their team.

What I found interesting about this pattern is that it highlights the importance of transparency and honesty in the workplace. It also emphasizes that software development is a continuous learning process, and everyone is constantly learning. There is no shame in not knowing something, and it is better to admit it and ask for help than to pretend to know everything. This pattern encourages a culture of openness and collaboration in the workplace, which can lead to better team performance.

This pattern has caused me to change the way I think about my intended profession. As a future software developer, I now understand that it is okay to not know everything and that I will constantly be learning throughout my career. I have also learned that it is essential to have an open and collaborative culture in the workplace, where everyone feels comfortable sharing their knowledge and learning process with others. It is this openness that will foster innovation and lead to better results.

However, I do disagree with one aspect of this pattern, which is the suggestion to put a list of things that you don’t understand in a place where others can see it. While it is essential to refresh the list frequently and work on improving the listed skills, I don’t think it needs to be public. I believe it is enough to have the list for personal reference and accountability. Nevertheless, the core idea of exposing your ignorance and asking questions to learn is vital and should be practiced regardless.

In conclusion, the “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is an essential tool for any apprentice in any profession, especially software development. Admitting your lack of knowledge and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it fosters a culture of openness and collaboration. By adopting this pattern, you will not only improve your skills but also build stronger relationships with your colleagues and team members.

 

From the blog Zed's Blog by Lord Zed and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Expose Your Ignorance

In the early stages of a career, it is quite natural to feel like you don’t know enough and to be intimidated by the tasks ahead. As an apprentice, you may feel like you have to prove yourself to your colleagues and bosses, which often leads to pretending to know more than you actually do. However, pretending to be an expert can lead to disastrous results and can harm the project in the long run. The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is a solution to this problem that many apprentices face.

The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern emphasizes the importance of being honest about your lack of knowledge, especially when it comes to software development. Being transparent about your ignorance is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it allows your team members and managers to understand the scope of your abilities. This pattern encourages apprentices to admit their lack of knowledge, ask questions, and share their learning process with their team.

What I found interesting about this pattern is that it highlights the importance of transparency and honesty in the workplace. It also emphasizes that software development is a continuous learning process, and everyone is constantly learning. There is no shame in not knowing something, and it is better to admit it and ask for help than to pretend to know everything. This pattern encourages a culture of openness and collaboration in the workplace, which can lead to better team performance.

This pattern has caused me to change the way I think about my intended profession. As a future software developer, I now understand that it is okay to not know everything and that I will constantly be learning throughout my career. I have also learned that it is essential to have an open and collaborative culture in the workplace, where everyone feels comfortable sharing their knowledge and learning process with others. It is this openness that will foster innovation and lead to better results.

However, I do disagree with one aspect of this pattern, which is the suggestion to put a list of things that you don’t understand in a place where others can see it. While it is essential to refresh the list frequently and work on improving the listed skills, I don’t think it needs to be public. I believe it is enough to have the list for personal reference and accountability. Nevertheless, the core idea of exposing your ignorance and asking questions to learn is vital and should be practiced regardless.

In conclusion, the “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is an essential tool for any apprentice in any profession, especially software development. Admitting your lack of knowledge and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it fosters a culture of openness and collaboration. By adopting this pattern, you will not only improve your skills but also build stronger relationships with your colleagues and team members.

 

From the blog Zed's Blog by Lord Zed and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Expose Your Ignorance

In the early stages of a career, it is quite natural to feel like you don’t know enough and to be intimidated by the tasks ahead. As an apprentice, you may feel like you have to prove yourself to your colleagues and bosses, which often leads to pretending to know more than you actually do. However, pretending to be an expert can lead to disastrous results and can harm the project in the long run. The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is a solution to this problem that many apprentices face.

The “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern emphasizes the importance of being honest about your lack of knowledge, especially when it comes to software development. Being transparent about your ignorance is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it allows your team members and managers to understand the scope of your abilities. This pattern encourages apprentices to admit their lack of knowledge, ask questions, and share their learning process with their team.

What I found interesting about this pattern is that it highlights the importance of transparency and honesty in the workplace. It also emphasizes that software development is a continuous learning process, and everyone is constantly learning. There is no shame in not knowing something, and it is better to admit it and ask for help than to pretend to know everything. This pattern encourages a culture of openness and collaboration in the workplace, which can lead to better team performance.

This pattern has caused me to change the way I think about my intended profession. As a future software developer, I now understand that it is okay to not know everything and that I will constantly be learning throughout my career. I have also learned that it is essential to have an open and collaborative culture in the workplace, where everyone feels comfortable sharing their knowledge and learning process with others. It is this openness that will foster innovation and lead to better results.

However, I do disagree with one aspect of this pattern, which is the suggestion to put a list of things that you don’t understand in a place where others can see it. While it is essential to refresh the list frequently and work on improving the listed skills, I don’t think it needs to be public. I believe it is enough to have the list for personal reference and accountability. Nevertheless, the core idea of exposing your ignorance and asking questions to learn is vital and should be practiced regardless.

In conclusion, the “Expose Your Ignorance” pattern is an essential tool for any apprentice in any profession, especially software development. Admitting your lack of knowledge and asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness, and it fosters a culture of openness and collaboration. By adopting this pattern, you will not only improve your skills but also build stronger relationships with your colleagues and team members.

 

From the blog Zed's Blog by Lord Zed and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.