I’ve written some blog posts on getting into the business of software development before. Specifically this list of books on programming, yet I had a conversation with a young engineer the other week and it made me wonder what else I could do to people get into the field. Luckily for me, this young engineer has friends who are also in college and also looking to get some information on the field.
Now, I’m famous for saying, “I’m a Zack of all trades, master of some (really few).” The truth is, when it comes to software, I’m not a super-strong master of many. I get the conceptual idea of a bunch of it, and I’m really just an expert at seeing a problem and understanding the solution. What I’m good at is finding resources to help me and understanding what the resources tell me and translating that into solutions.
Still, when I was starting, I wish there were a bunch of things people had told me. I wish I had known that literally, anything is possible in the world of computer programming if you are willing to dig deep enough to figure out what is going on. I wish I had been told some good places to start learning. I wish I had been told that it’s okay to ask any question once, but it’s really bad to ask the same question over and over again. That it is disrespectful to go to someone with more knowledge than you without even doing a google search and bringing something to the discussion.
Anyway, these are some of the things I learned. I’m curious what the knowledge gap is between those of us in the industry and those just finishing college. To that end, I’m hosting a zoom call on Thursday, August 19th at 8 PM eastern. I’ll probably have some slides prepared, but I’m hoping that most of the session is about Q&A with questions people bring. All you need to do is join the zoom.