One of the things I’ve always believed in was spending personal time improving my skill as a software developer. Jean-Paul describes this as being a student of your profession. A very good way to put it I think. For me I had actually hit a plateau a few years ago. But that changed when I saw Jean-Paul at an Edmug event. Since then between the amazing Code Camp that Edmug put on, and the even more amazing Jean-Paul course I’ve found that what I had thought would be a climb up the education slope has turned into a rocket trip.
It’s very difficult but I’m actually starting to see results. I can now start to explain why I like to use certain techniques and principles (as opposed to saying “Because Fowler, JP, Eric Evans, etc” said so). And when I’m learning/reading new things I actually compare what is being said to my own personal design views.
Of course all this education takes a lot of time which I’ve been very lucky to have. It definitely involves sacrifices but I have an end goal in sight that I think will make it worth it. Of course all of this wouldn’t have been possible without two very important things:
1) Finding out what I don’t know. Hearing words like Design Patterns, Domain Driven Design, NHibernate, etc and realizing there was a whole world out there I didn’t know about.
2) Making the decision that it was important to learn what I didn’t know. To try and take my knowledge to the next level and having the support of community and family required to carry out that decision.
The rocket has been fired and at this point I’m getting past just trying to hold on.. so far it’s been a pretty amazing 6 months. Have you taken a rocket ride lately?
Code Learnings 