This pattern is very important it tells us how to begin the career switch from student to paid professional. It is a scary moment of unprecedented uncertainty. It helps us see with a clearer image that there are levels of expectation. These expectations are stratified to build a path to success. It also throws cautionary tales of getting comfortable doing the work at the outer layers of what’s expected.

This is very personal because everyone of us graduating will face the reality of a professional environment. I could not say that it will be harsh or easy. What I can say is that the expectations and anxiety that we generate ourselves is harsh. It makes me feel better to think that the professional world in general has a path in which one can climb, even if this path is steep. The great fear is that there is no path, the goal is the space station, and you don’t know how to build a rocket.

Putting my trust on the writers I expect this sweeping the floor pattern a practiced reality in real situations. I don’t believe there are any menial tasks. All tasks must be completed, and I wouldn’t mind if I had to do some of them or even all of them if it’s all I can do. I have used this pattern in my own life differently. When my car brakes I usually fix it myself because I can not afford the extra expense, this is something that I really don’t want to do. It takes time away from my studies, but it also helps me afford it. Some people say why should they pay a mechanic x amount for only an hour of work but the amount it would take a normal person without the tools and environment would much offset whatever savings they think they had. Most of the time I think if I had the money, I would pay double for a professional to do this for me.

You learn the cost of doing something by doing things you wouldn’t necessarily want to do. Sweeping the floor may begin with doing the easy undesirable work but it must progress into doing work you are uncomfortable with. Success in life comes when you accept uncertainty and never get too cozy as to be paralyzed by extraneous events.      

From the blog CS@Worcester – technology blog by jeffersonbourguignoncoutinho and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This pattern is a great idea for a beginner such as me. It offers a way to complement the lack of knowledge that comes with the lack of experience. It should be used carefully because of the ease of wanting to just reinforce the skills you are already good at. Knowing a little on a lot of subjects will not help getting things done and knowing a lot in just one subject will get you just as far. The secret as I see it is to have a good toolbox and know how to at least hold each tool. As you need to pick up each of these tools you learn about them more in depth but not too much to hinder your progress. As you shuffle through this toolbox picking up things you need and not obsessing on one tool you build a hierarchy of depth in the knowledge of things you need most. We will handle the same tool more than once and every time we do, we should dig just a little more.

The author presents a more all in version of the dig deeper which I think is the philosophical normalized world idea. It would be nice if we had the luxury of tunnel vision and look for the PhD dissertation of the original design algorithm for every tool we use, but it is also the easiest way to fall into a deadlock. I find that in school it is very hard to get in depth knowledge on every subject as much as I want. Time and time again I see myself compromising and kicking the can down the road, because I do want in-depth knowledge in some subjects, but there are time sensitive co-responsibilities that need immediate attention. Although, as I said earlier, some of these tools that I want to understand better come up again and again over the semesters and I do indeed gain a little more ground on understanding them.

I believe the author is right when he says that we need to learn to dive into ever lower levels of understanding.  By lower I mean from specific to general and by specific, I mean not only the surface high level function you need. The author does throw a little caution which I also mentioned earlier. The risk of becoming what some call a one trick pony.  The balance is really hard to define, and it is very personal. I don’t have my own balance definition yet, but I hope that with time this too will come.

From the blog CS@Worcester – technology blog by jeffersonbourguignoncoutinho and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The breakable toy pattern is something I practice often without realizing it was considered a pattern for good learning practice. I must say at times I find it to be a double edge sword. Sometimes I look for things beyond my abilities and end up stuck, depressed, and put it in the back burner, but I end up unpacking them later [because I’m stubborn] sometimes over multiple iterations and when I finally get them working the achievement felt is increased in the same order. I think this pattern probably pairs well with other patterns such as confront your own ignorance maybe I’ll write about this one next. Anyway, I want to talk about how he describes the pattern in his own way.

The author makes a good point in the first few paragraphs that the point of a breakable toy was to be able to work on things you don’t usually work on. This description enforces that this pattern helps you learn without side effects on the systems you work on that are not toys. I believe that he makes this distinction to allow for a daring approach, one that would allow you to try something just to see what happens. This allows for a much deeper understanding of any problem. It is like testing to find boundaries, critical systems may not allow such playful adventures but even these critical systems had to be prototyped at some point and someone stress tested the system so you could have a safe playpen.

I know stress testing is an idea that could be consider a little alien to the breakable toy pattern, but I believe it is part of it. When building these breakable toys, we use tools and frame works that we sometimes stress to the end of their abilities. Then we find better tools and frameworks or learn to better use and manage the ones we have.

To conclude the breakable toy pattern allows for growth not only skill-wise but also mentally when we exercise self-control. It allows us to practice focus and confront anxiety. To build the skill set of building skill sets.       

From the blog CS@Worcester – technology blog by jeffersonbourguignoncoutinho and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.