Although I tend to speak rather broadly about certain apprenticeship patterns, nonetheless many of the patterns I have written about in this blog do apply to the field of Software Development. After all, the book, from which these patterns have originated from, that I have been reading for the past few months is more focused on programming than any other craft. This is the reason why this particular pattern applies to my learning process of Software Development which, ironically, I realise that I have not applied to the degree that I thought I have when learning other programming languages. In fact, a significant part of the learning process is to “unlearn” pre-existing knowledge and approaching learning a craft in a “blank slate”. This notion corresponds to a pattern titled “White Belt” which, though it may seem ironic, it is in fact a very significant pattern.

When a developer faces the need to utilize this pattern, it means that their pre-existing knowledge may be interfering with acquiring new knowledge and skills more challenging, or even impossible. When it comes to programming languages, the know-how that one may be holding on from learning and mastering their first programming language may impair their problem-solving approaches. Oftentimes, they may be expecting to see tools or concepts from one language they already know that are completely non-existent in the language that they are learning. Moreover, the potential differences in syntax can also throw an apprentice off when learning a new language, thus it is easy for us to hit a roadblock simply because the solutions we may want are (or so we think) simply not there. As such, a way to avoid this roadblock is to simply approach the new language that we are learning as its own thing and with a clear state of mind.

Usually, I tend to say that I like or agree with a pattern because in my own experience I tend to utilize such patterns in my own, perhaps roundabout way. However, this pattern is the first that has made me question my own approach to learning, which is contrary to this pattern. I often tend to look for “common ground” between my pre-existing knowledge and the new knowledge before me to “save time” and get to “the good stuff” faster. In a way, this pattern hurts my pride as a software apprentice. And, in all fairness, it should. It is important for me to acknowledge that flaw in my learning process and instead wear the white belt when I pick up a new programming language to learn.

From the blog CS@Worcester – CompSci Log by sohoda and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The ‘reading list’ apprenticeship pattern supposes a solution to a situation where you are finding books you want to read faster than you can get through them. There are lots of really good resources available for programming, and reading them is a great way to help you improve your programming skills. However, with such an abundance of resources, it becomes difficult to manage everything you want to read. The solution is, as is suggested by the name of the apprenticeship pattern, to maintain a reading list. This list should store both books you want to read and books you have already read. Hoover and Oshineye recommend storing your reading list somewhere public so that other people can see and learn from your list. Keeping a list like this for several years will allow you to analyze your reading habits and pick out spots where there might be gaps in your knowledge. As you work through your list, you can use the bibliographies of the books you read to add new books to your reading list. This can also help you narrow your research down into an area you take interest in.

I think this apprenticeship pattern is interesting, and I think it’s a great way to keep track of what you want to read. I think the advice to read books included in the bibliographies of books you thought were useful is really useful. I also really like the idea of being able to monitor your progress as you work through your reading list. I already kind of do this, just not exclusively with programming resources. I use a website to keep track of the books I want to read and the books I’ve already read. I like being able to see all of the books I have or want to read, because I know if I didn’t store that information somewhere I would forget all about it. It’s also really interesting to be able to analyze my own reading statistics like what genres I tend to read and what days I read more. I use it mostly for pleasure reading, but I think it would be useful to dedicate a section of my existing list to programming resources.

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.

A Different Road

You find yourself tired and bored of your work. You have some personal projects to advance your skills that keeps you busy, but you find yourself needing to take a break. To diverge from the road you are on to either just rest for a while or to just see where it goes. Your career as a software developer is not what ultimately defines you. A Different Road describes a scenario where the road you have been traveling on in your programming career is not the road you want to travel along anymore. You might wish to spend more time at home and with your family. You might desire to train for a marathon. You could buy a bit of land, build a barn and become a farmer.

The road of your software development career never truly ends until you decide to end it and even if you do, you can always start back on it again. Just like riding a bicycle you never really forget something that you practiced frequently. So, take the break that you need. Buy that farm and become a farmer. Your career is not what really defines you, and maybe whatever you try will need some kind of optimization that your skill-set can solve.

Ultimately this pattern speaks to the idea of breaking the stubborn mindset most people find themselves in. It’s this mindset of having a path and having no other choice. The path paid your bills and you enjoy it to a degree. It’s hard to accept the idea that this thing you have been spending your time on isn’t right for you. To align with the road analogy, the road you have been traveling has been well paved and barely has any traffic. As you travel further and further you might find it gets even easier and has even more lanes and less traffic. You might also find that this road has potholes and traffic has only gotten worse and worse.

Recognizing when that road isn’t worth traveling on is easy to think about, but harder to act on even when it’s right in front of you. But unlike the road analogy, your skills and motivation are not a car. You can’t sell it and lose it, it can’t be stolen from you, and even if you don’t use it for a while it doesn’t mean it can’t start back up again. The thing to take to heart is do what you want to do, but also stop doing the thing you don’t want to do just because it’s your career.

From the blog CS@Worcester – A Boolean Not An Or by Julion DeVincentis and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

I finished the patterns I wanted to write about from chapter 4 and moved on to chapter 5, Perpetual Learning. Like the last few chapters, I to post about the first pattern of the chapter and then one of the last ones, so this post will be about Expand your Bandwidth. The focus of the chapter is on the topic of the lifelong journey of learning that is taken when you are an apprentice transitioning into a journeyman, which is a concept that was brought up in the first chapter.

The first pattern is an effective start to the chapter, as it is about how you can move on from lower level problems to higher level ones, and how you can expand your learning ability. The solution given to the problem is to find different ways to learn more than you may not have been using before, such as blogs, books, and other online resources. Because of how much technology there is in the world today, there are plenty of ways to find information online, and use different avenues of learning. I have found a lot of information online by either looking things up when I had questions or issues, or just by reading blogs and articles. I have looked online plenty of times when I needed help on something, especially computer science projects. I would search based on the error codes I was getting and try different sites to see if I could find a solution that worked for me. Using online resources have been very helpful to me for my work related to computer science, along with some other courses and activities.

I agree with the last paragraph of the solution that talks about deciding when you should start expanding, because while it is good to have all this information to learn from, you still want time to put that learning to use at software craftsmanship. You want to make time to continue working and improving yourself so that everything you are reading about and learning is beneficial to your work. I like that this problem brought more attention to the topic of this being a lifelong journey with continuous learning and development, while pointing out potential problems with obsessing over learning.

From the blog Jeffery Neal's Blog by jneal44 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

There is always a good teacher behind a good student and a good engineer needs a good mentor who will help sharpen the skills and knowledge of that person. There is a saying “if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. Together with the mentorship, the engineer will become skilled at his job and has solid fundamental knowledge in this field.

By learning from the best, we learn how to become one of them. The apprenticeship will be supervised by a series of mentors who possess varying degrees of mastery. Every master used to be a student and no one is perfect. So keeping in mind that a master must be perfect is a misconception. It can be tempting to feel that way because they know so much more than we do. We must resist the temptation because we would not want to disillusion our mentor’s inevitable weaknesses.

The story about Dave finding his mentor shows us his journey. By sending out a random email to his mentor, Wyatt, he initially did not expect Wyatt’s response however Wyatt did. The effort was a payoff and he earned himself a mentor. What we could learn from this story is that we should not afraid to ask for help because sometimes what the other is waiting for is us asking.

Good mentors are not easy to find and not everyone is willing to open their arms and welcome us as amateurs. Plus, reaching out to someone that we do not know feels intimidating. However, the risk of being rejected is low but the payoff would be huge. Even though that person does not want to become our master but if we are consistent enough, what we could get back is a good friend. Besides taking in, passing along what we have learned from our mentors is one of the ways in which we can begin the transition to journeyman status.

How could we do that? One must wonder

Choose a tool, library, or community that has an active mailing list. Start small by signing up for the list but do not post any messages yet. Gradually, we will understand the values of the community and learn which of the subscribers are patient teachers. Seek out the members of this list the next time we see them and ask if they would be interested in providing us with some advice about the lesson they have learned. As I said above, we might get rejected but the valuable gift that one might earn is a good friend.

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

Christian Shadis

In the apprenticeship pattern Expand Your Bandwidth, Hoover and Oshineye explore the importance of learning as much new information as possible as a new developer. They talk about how many developers have relatively low understanding of programming concepts when they enter the workforce, and how these new programmers can take advantage of the wealth of knowledge available for consumption. They make the analogy of drinking out of a straw versus out of a firehose – increase the volume of information you consume as much as possible.

This pattern particularly resonated with me. I feel as though I have a very solid low-level understanding of several different concepts in the world of software development and data analytics. I lack that high-level expertise in all the subjects I have studied in the past three years. I have attempted to emulate this pattern before learning about it: I have a shelf stuffed with books about everything from CS basics to networking to Machine Learning, and I do my best to read as much as possible about the subject.

As mentioned in my previous post, I entered the Computer Science world far later than I would have preferred and faced the difficulty of entering a vast industry filled with passionate, lifelong learners as a programmer with absolutely no knowledge of anything related to computer science. I believe I have spent my time wisely, learning lots of information about several different subjects, and managed to build up a solid toolkit before graduating.

I hope to use this pattern throughout my career, but especially so over this coming summer. I will be seeking employment as a software developer or engineer, and I feel as though some gaps in my knowledge should be plugged up as soon as possible. I plan to do a deep dive on full-stack development and connecting the frontend and backend of a system and use my newfound knowledge to do a complete rebuild of my website (ctshadis.github.io) with a proper full stack and domain name. I believe this will require learning lots of new information and applying it immediately in a way that will make me more qualified for any full-stack development jobs I apply for.

Reference: Hoover, D. H., & Oshineye, A. (2010). Perpetual Learning. In Apprenticeship patterns: Guidance for the aspiring software craftsman. O’Reilly.

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