I was just reading a question on Slashdot where someone is looking for Advice For Programmers Right Out of School.
“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?”
I think when people go into the computer science program, you often think you will come out knowing how to write these grand applications, but that just isn’t the case. I went to two different schools and studied computer science at both and the programs were very similar; just the language of choice was different — one was c++ and one was Java. But the core curriculum focused on teaching theory and good practices and then you were given programming assignments to demonstrate your comprehension of what you learned.
Most bachelor level computer science programs teach you the fundamentals, essentially giving you tools for your toolbox. Once you graduate, it is up to you to use those tools and gain experience building your masterpieces.
As far as learning new technologies and languages… buy a good book, search the web, sit down in front of your computer and try it out. ou can’t wait for things to fall in your lap; you need to make it happen.
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