This pattern is very important to every young developer who wants to stay on track of his ambitions. As the writer rightly said, it is hard to protect your passion, let alone grow it in a very constrained environment. I know as an inexperience apprentice seeking to explore the industry of software development, I am going to face many problems not limited to doing what I will not like. For that reason, I will need to find something that interests me at work in order to survive the challenges that will arise. I think it might be challenging to find something as you are not working for yourself; your employer will have his predefined requirement and conventions that might conflict with your passion. One thing I am not sure it is properly address is the issue of doing something you love even though the writer offers some suggestions. According to Paul Graham, “to become a successful developer may be to work on what you like and to do something well, you have to love it”. I have an issue here because, not all your assignment at work will be what you will like to do. I understood to grow my passion, I will need to set clear boundaries within which I am willing to work. So if the work at hand doesn’t falls within my set boundaries, do I quit my job? In those situations, what do I do then?  I also strongly agreed with the writer about immersing yourself in some of the great literature of our field. I think this book will serve as a great reference tool to deal with most problems arising outside the classroom upon graduation as far as the patterns are concern. This book will be my dictionary to all kinds of situation that I might come across as I travel the journey in the software development industry.

I have seen this pattern as the most challenging to deal with among the entire pattern I have read so far. Even though it offers some strategies not limited to walking out of meetings that has become abusive and redirecting cynical conversation toward constructive topics or refusing to distribute code that doesn’t meet your minimum standards, your team members and even superiors whom you take directions from might develop the impression that you lack respect for them and the penalty can go as far terminating your employment.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Computer Science Exploration by ioplay and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.