Advice For Programmers Right Out of School

ari1981 writes "I recently graduated from school with a CS degree, and several of my classes were very theoretical in nature. There was some programming, but it seems not as much as in other schools. I'm currently working at a company where I'm doing primarily c/c++ app development on unix. But as I read slashdot, and other tech sites / articles, and realize for some of the software being written nowadays, I would have absolutely NO IDEA how to even begin writing it. I remember first time I saw them, I thought console emulators were really cool. After my education, I have no idea how someone would begin writing one. With the work I'm doing now, it doesn't seem I'm going to be using (or creating) any of the really cool technology I hear about. How did everyone here begin learning / teaching themselves about different aspects of programming, that they initially had no clue about? How did you improve? Programming on your own? Through work?"

Comments

Invest in yourself. Assume no one else will.

[Dystopian Rebel]

Congratulations on earning your degree.

An entire generation of creative software people who had great ideas and deaf employers grew sick of their cubicles and started the open-source software revolution. They wanted to learn stuff and do stuff, just like you do.

Grab the code, read it, mess with it. Invest in yourself and assume no one else will.

My experience has been that you MUST teach yourself... especially if you work for the big cubicle farms. Teach yourself so you become better, so you keep your skills current, so you energize your imagination, and so you can go elsewhere when your employer enters the BRED ("Beancounters Rule Every Decision") Stage Of Atrophy.

BRED means that your employer is unlikely to pay for you to learn anything useful, especially not during the sunny hours when their BMWs and Porsches are in the parking lot. BRED means that good ideas die unless you happen to drink whisky with the CEO once a week.

Cowardly employees and consitutionally cheerful employees are easier to flog and much less frightening and expensive than people who want their employer to invest in them. People who have the latest skills aren't chained heavily enough. And when the expenses grow and the balance-sheets and Powerpoint slides don't show the Beancounters at the top any benefit ("any chance of getting more stock options"), you can bet that your Red Swingline Stapler is going to Bangalore.