Skills of a Software Developer by Fernando Doglio

Author:Fernando Doglio [Doglio, Fernando]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Manning Publications Co.
Published: 2022-06-15T22:00:00+00:00

5.1.2 The internet is great, but so is a formal education

In chapter 1, I mentioned that one of the most common “requirement” misconceptions for starting out as a developer is having a formal education. You don’t need to wait three or four (or more) years to get your first job—not when you can get the basics directly from a bootcamp or the internet. However, once you’ve started on your journey, there is definitely something to be said for going through formal education.

Everyone learns differently. Some people learn by doing, and others need to watch how things are done to understand them. Some will be more comfortable learning at their own pace and following their own interests, while others might require the constant pressure and follow-up of a teacher.

The internet is great, and it contains everything you need to know about anything, but you also have to be your own teacher. If you’re the type of person who learns better when there is someone in front of you—someone you can ask a question or ask for help when you need to—a formal education is something you should consider.

I’m not making this up. I learned programming on my own with a very limited internet connection when I was 14 years old. By the time I was 20 and got my first developer job, I started realizing that my self-learning program had been full of holes. I knew how to write code, and I was doing my job well enough, but others around me were talking about design patterns, MVC, and common best practices, and I was looking at them trying to keep my jaw from dropping.

It took me five years, but I eventually decided to get a formal education. I felt I needed to learn about things I had never deemed worth it, and I was right. After five years of work experience, I joined a three-year program, and by the time I was 28 years old, I was a programming analyst. I wasn’t an engineer, but I had learned the core concepts that I had skipped over while learning on my own.

And you know what? The core concepts were important, but not for the reason you’d think. Yes, three years later I knew things I didn’t before, and that was useful. But by learning those concepts, I had managed to do something a lot more powerful: I had silenced the voice in my head telling me I wasn’t good enough. I was now able to talk about the same concepts my colleagues were discussing, and while the quality of my code had improved, I had also gained the confidence I needed to tackle bigger and more complex problems. I had become more autonomous.

I also picked up other skills I had never thought useful for our profession, such as technical writing. I had to write so many papers during those three years that I realized I liked writing. That eventually led me to writing technical articles, and it helped me improve my communication skills.

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