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Taking Your Programming Skills to the Next Level?
An anonymous reader asks: "About 6 years ago I graduated with a degree in Computer Science. Since that time I've been working on and off as a programmer, however I feel that my programming skills haven't really progressed to the next level as I had hoped. I guess part of the problem is that my work environment hasn't been especially technical or challenging, so I really need to try and improve my skills independently. What strategies did Slashdot readers use to improve their programming skills Which books are useful in this area?"
If your current job isn't challenging you, then get out of it now. Do not delay.
All you are doing is painting yourself into a corner skills-wise that is going to get harder and harder to get out of later. The longer you're doing this basic stuff, the rustier and rustier all the real actual knowledge you got out of your degree is becoming.
Employers don't want rusty people, they want people with skills already.
Get out now.
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I may be wrong, but the submitter doesn't seem like the type who's going to pick up another language or solve some useless problem "just for fun." That's okay though, because I'm the same way. I hear about people who program shit in their spare time just to solve trivial problems, and I just cant get into that. However, I am a fairly good programmer. In my case, the reason I became good is because I went to several different jobs, and in each job there was some sort of major problem that the company or team had been dealing with for a while, that I decided I could solve. The difference between that and solving useless problems in my spare time is that a.) it makes my job easier, and b.) I'm getting paid for it.
I've made most of my money over the years (not that I'm a millionaire or anything but, hey, I'm still young) doing automation work. I see a manual process being used, decide it can be automated, and I automate it. That's the sort of programming that really gets me going: programming that makes life easier.
So, I guess my advice for those unmotivated to do things on their own time would be this: Find a problem at work that can be solved through some sort of program. Solve it. This could be automation of a monotonous task, or it could be writing an application to replace some boneheaded spreadsheet that everyone has been using for years to track inventory.
The upshot of all of this I guess is that I agree with you that practice makes you a better programmer. However, I would encourage people to look for problems in their work lives that can be solved through programming if they are too unmotivated or otherwise occupied to program in their spare time.
but have you considered helping on a open source project? Depending on the project (and yourself) you could learn a lot. It being a real project with a real team, etc, should sufficiently motivate you.
As for books, pick up K&R & read it, work the execrises, repeat.
Best of luck.
Not having had the advantage of a formal education (I have a GED and otherwise I am self taught) I've had to resort to, in some cases, drastic means of career as well as technical information acquisition. I have found the following to be consistently true.
1. You are rarely given additional responsibility (i.e. new projects, new technologies, "hard" stuff) at a job without first proving that you can do it. This usually involves doing things that "aren't my job" without getting paid for it for a certain amount of time and then being your own advocate after the fact. No one deserves anything on their own word. Find new things going on at work and put yourself square in the middle of it. Nothing interesting going on? Start analyzing the development process and environment and propose ways of making it better (and ofter to execute said plan).
2. Read. A lot. I highly recommend O'Reilly's Safari Bookshelf thingie. Some people don't like to read on line and prefer "real" books. I think that's cool, but you can't let that be a reason why you don't read. If you can't afford to buy all the new tech books you want to read, get a library card. Live in some strange place with no libraries? Find a way. You will if you want it.
3. Read non-technical articles and resources about the development process, software design and architecture, intergration methods. You know, "sciencey" type stuff. I find that I like certain authors more than others. For instance, Martin Fowler (http://www.martinfowler.com/) is the author of many excellent books and is known for his work in design patterns and architecture. If you read nothing else, read his work. Remember there's a much bigger world than writing guest book "scripts" 10,000 times (and thank insert-deity-here that's true).
4. Talk to other people. Anyone. Everyone. Project managers, developers, system administrators, architects, analysts, QA folk, telco employees, and anyone else that will give you the time of day. Learn what they do, how they do it, why they do it that way, and how it effects what you do and why. You'll have a much better understanding of distributed computing if you understand network and security principals and how they apply (and you might just not open up yet another SQL inject bug because of it).
5. Commit yourself to improving your craft by practicing it. Constantly. I find that being involved in open source development is 100% free peer reviewed experiance. Additionally, the open source work I've done in the past has won me a job or two. You never know when you might meet someone important to advancing your life.
6. Consider everyone you meet a student who may benefit from you, but more importantly, a teacher no matter how much smarter you think you are. Discuss, debate, learn, integrate new knowledge, repeat.
7. Find a mentor. Someone willing to take you under their wing (whether they know it or not) and soak information from them like a sponge. Don't know one? That's why I said *find* one. Very few people learn things themselves. Most people are taught by others, if by written or spoken word, code, IRC, or otherwise. I can't stress the mentor thing enough. Find two. Three is better. Find mentors that don't agree with one another and compare ideas. Learn from everyone.
This is what has worked for me. I dropped out of high school, got a GED ("good enough diploma"), and got really lucky in meeting the people I did. I do software architecture and design for a living in addition to mentoring and "grooming" developers. I learn more from them in a single day than I learned from any book (give or take).
Good luck. If you're trying to figure out why you aren't where you want to be or why you haven't attained what you want, you're already a step ahead of everyone else. You'll be fine.