For the fourth week’s reading, I chose to read the pattern, Breakable Toys. This pattern focused on the problem where you are introduced into an environment that doesn’t allow you to fail. Even though everyone knows that you are learning from your failures is the best form of learning. There solution is that you create something similar or a private environment where you can create and work around projects that are similar but not replicas of the projects where you work. The goal is to learn from failing in similar projects where you can learn how to work around them and possibly apply concepts learned in the future. An action provided for this pattern is to build a simple wiki while maintaining quality. In effect, you should be able to keep implementing more features by learning and applying them. Concluding this would be, don’t let work constraints prevent you from learning for yourself and take control of what you can learn and apply.

What I found interesting about this pattern would be their example of breakable toys. Which is to re-create known tools to give yourself a deeper understanding about the tool and why it came to be that way. Examples of these are games like Tetris, tic-tac-toe, or other simple software. By being able to successfully recreate such games and software, you can get a feel for the thought process and problems that the first creators may have come across and face long ago. Enabling yourself to have time, experiment, fail, and try again is essential in learning. Another would be the wiki solution, as you may learn much more than expected over a longer period of time.

This pattern has reinforced my current thoughts about my intended profession. I believe that there will be many different environments to face in the future. Some may be welcoming, and some may not be so welcoming. By learning about how to deal with a situation such as this one where failure is not allowed. Being able to adapt quickly and create a workable solution is important in progressing as a person and in the field of software development.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Progression through Computer Science and Beyond… by Johnny To and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

It’s fair to say that I am nervous about entering a computer science job and working with a professional software development team for the first time. While I will be fortunate enough to graduate with knowledge of agile development, I have a feeling that it will be quite different to participate in development with more experienced coworkers, rather than with classmates with similar skill levels as me. This week’s apprenticeship pattern, “Sweep the Floor,” described various ways that I can potentially overcome this initial worry of fitting in and being able to contribute on the team to the best of my ability.

Sweep the Floor discusses my exact predicament: being the new apprentice on the team and struggling to find my place within it. The solution for this issue is to work on simple and more mundane, or unglamorous, tasks which the rest of the team may find more tedious. Or, the apprentice may focus more on the “edges” of the project (rather than the “core”) to minimize any risks to the project that could come with putting a newcomer on the more difficult parts of the work. These tasks are still necessary for team success, and therefore make great experience for an apprentice who is just starting out in the field. By completing these seemingly unimportant tasks, the apprentice can show the rest of the team that he or she is capable of producing quality work that benefits the whole group.

Before I read about this pattern, I was already aware that as a new member of the software development team, I wouldn’t have as much responsibility or experience as other coworkers who have been on the team for a longer period of time. This pattern gave me a better sense of direction, in terms of more specifics for the kind of work I could expect to complete when first starting out on the development team. I have always found some reassurance in the thought that new employers and colleagues expect fresh college graduates to not have much experience outside of the coding projects they completed for classes. This pattern helped further encourage me that I can make the most of this “newbie” status by finding important tasks to do and still gaining valuable practice.

Thanks for reading!

From the blog CS@Worcester – Hi, I'm Kat. by Kat Law and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

I decided to dive in with one of the first patterns of the selection, “Your First Language”. I chose this one because I was curious about the tips that the author would give individuals trying to decide on a first language, as well as to see if any of the tips translated for someone like myself, who is trying to branch out into learning more and more languages. This pattern breaks down the steps to choosing a first language and gives several factors for why you should potentially choose a language but makes sure that it is clear that these are tips and not the only reasons for selecting a first language. After picking the first language, the pattern lays out some tips for how to actually learn the new language. The pattern also lays out a simple means of learning more languages down the line and why someone should pick a particular different language.

I’m glad that I chose this pattern because I’m currently in a position where I am forced to learn a new language for a job I will be starting after graduation. The language that my new position almost entirely uses is C++ and I have absolutely no experience in it. The procrastination is killing me as my “native tongue” as the pattern describes it, is Java. Java is what I always try to use to solve problems even if I’m being asked to write in a language like javascript, python, etc. I always revert back to the concepts I’ve learned throughout college almost exclusively using Java. Learning C++ is going to be something that I must do and will attack throughout the next few months before starting my job. The opening to the article was also very helpful in relieving the stress slightly as it talks about how when you start your first job, you’re not expected to be an expert in ANYTHING. I’ve learned that through my last two internships where even though they were both Java based, they used entirely different frameworks and almost everything that isn’t core Java syntax, required an entirely different skill set and understanding.

The only part of the pattern that you could argue I disagree with, is the complete focus on your choice being driven by potential physical mentors. With the internet and communities within the internet, it is relatively easy to find mentors online who are more than happy to answer any of your questions in understanding a new concept or a language for that matter. Overall, I found this pattern VERY useful!

From the blog CS@Worcester – The Road to Software Engineering by Stephen Burke and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

This Apprenticeship pattern “Breakable Toys” highlights the importance of creating an environment to experiment with important software development concepts, while affording us the opportunity to fail at no risk to ourselves.  The philosophy behind this apprenticeship pattern is the best way to gain meaningful experience is to practice and fail and learn from our mistakes.

In the context of software engineering, that means to create “breakable toy” programs that we can use to hone our skill set, while not having the pressure of success in the workplace get in the way of the learning process. We can experiment at our own pace, and practice the concepts that are integral to our careers in an environment where we are entirely in control.

What stands out to me the most about this pattern is the unique solution the authors suggest; create a “toy” program that is meaningful to you that you will use. Sure the goal is to practice the skills that will make us successful in our careers, but the authors suggest that by creating a program that we will actually have fun making will add to the motivation of the creative process.

The authors provide a few examples of people who create their own wikis to learn fundamental concepts of front end development and web design like HTML or REST, or those who make games when they learn different languages to cement the fundamental concepts. The emphasis is on creating a safe environment to test and experiment with different tools while still having fun and fostering creativity.

The main point I took away from this pattern is the importance of creating a safe environment to practice my craft, without having to worry about the scope or the severity of the task, while at the same time being intrinsically motivated to create something of personal value. Real learning and experience isn’t something that can be gotten on the first pass or on the fly; trial by error by far is the best teacher. After all, it would be illogical to expect a musician to perform in front of an audience without rehearsing first.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Bit by Bit by rdentremont58 and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

          The “Create Feedback Loops” pattern is seen as a way to gain a better understanding of yourself without completely suffering from a blind sense of skill. The book continues on to say that self-assessment is limited to the abilities you have which makes it narrow minded if you don’t have many skills to start with. The best way to cope with this issue is to create a system where you can receive feedback or external data on your performance. It allows a more conscious take on your weak points as seen by other people which in turn will create a much more detailed self-assessment for yourself. The book then shows the importance of feedback in various environments such as job applications where applicants can be turned down, but this can become a learning experience as well. Understanding why one was turned down for a job also is a type of feedback that can show you different aspects of your character that you didn’t see. Finding a specific task to do is the hardest part because you must find something you can measure. Once this is done, compare how that task is affected by your work and understand how your actions are affecting it.

          I found the idea of creating different feedback loops with various people very useful and interesting. The idea of getting feedback from multiple people in multiple groups of your life could be very valuable information. I personally feel that there are aspects of work that meld into our personal lives and until someone else points them out, they seem second nature to us. This idea of taking others advice even when its not work related can cause interesting changes in how you tackle problems and view the situation. I found that listening to these valuable inputs is important but it’s just as important to understand which advice to follow as not all of them are good. I disagree with the idea that self-assessment is only limited to someone’s abilities. I think that even when you have little skill, you can accurately create an ideal image of what you want using facilities like the internet to expand on what you need to work on.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Student To Scholar by kumarcomputerscience and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The white belt as an apprenticeship pattern is what it sounds like. You are at the beginning of your journey and have a deep understanding of your first language. The problem arises when you are struggling to learn new material and it is harder to piece things together than when you started learning your first programming language. The author relates the solution back to Star Wars quoting Yoda, “You must unlearn what you have learned”. By doing so, this accelerates the learning process because you don’t try to relate things back to your current language but instead connect neurons together when trying to understand the new concepts you are learning.

I agree with the many things the author taught in this apprenticeship pattern. That too is how I learn new tools and technologies on my own but on the other hand, I always try to relate it back to my strongest, most knowledgeable language, and see if there are similar concepts and if there are ways to carry out a task more efficiently.

From the blog CS@Worcester – Life in the Field of Computer Science by iharrynguyen and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.