Why you should pay developers to learn
A true story We were having a meeting with a customer and he had just presented a project idea. He wanted us to give him a draft system architecture, supporting his project technical requirements. At one point, I was telling him that incremental development requires architecture evolution as well. When I said that finding the right architecture is also a learning process, he cut me off short of the following sentence: Do you expect me to pay you to learn? To save the day, I told him I was referring to the… Read More
Effective learning techniques for software craftsmen
Go in one ear and out the other Programming languages, operating systems, SQL, NoSQL, web frameworks, Spring, Java EE, HTML, JavaScript, Agile methodologies, you name it. A developer must know a ridiculous amount of things to become effective. There’s no wonder many of us are struggling to keep pace with the ever-changing programming landscape. When you’re a kid, doing stuff is the most natural way of learning, but then you go to school and you’re brainwashed into thinking that reading is the only way of studying. Become an active learner Ever since… Read More
Teaching is the best way to learn
Introduction Software development is all about knowledge, and nowadays the number of things a programmer needs to know skyrocketed. Most of the time developers are hired by matching their current skills with some project requirements. The project eventually ends, and the developer is assigned to a new project, sometimes using different technologies than what he was previously hired for. What’s the policy for training this guy to deliver his best the soonest possible? Usually, training and coaching are left-out, so each programmer is on his own. Every time we leave things to chance a huge… Read More
