Advice To A Programmer | The Coffeehouse

footballism
Another Paradigm Shift!

    After three years working experience as a mechanical engineer, I finally decide to make a change, and move to software industry, a small company in Shanghai region eventually decides to hire me as a software developer. I am just so exicted to become a professional developer. But softwares is still quite new to me, and I still have no idea of what the future holds for me.
   So I really need some advice from you guys on how to become a qualified developers. and how to learn the trade in this industry?
   Any constuctive and helpful advice will be appreciated tremendously.

Sheva

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

Learn s'more, go study for an MCAD/MCSD qualification, that'll definately broaden your horizons.

littleguru
<3 Seattle

W3bbo wrote:
Learn s'more, go study for an MCAD/MCSD qualification, that'll definately broaden your horizons.

You sure? I have heard they are not very challanging - nor extending the view. But I have just heard that.

DoomBringer
Doom!

I think you should have a Design Patterns book on your shelf. It helps a lot during system design. If you're doing Win32, have Petzold's Programming Windows.

Finally, always learn. Learning new things is good.

Minh
WOOH! WOOH!

Do things. Make mistakes. Best way to learn.

fdisk

Minh wrote:
Do things. Make mistakes. Best way to learn.

Unless those mistakes cost billions of dollars, yes. And dedicate a PC in your home to development (don't have important stuff on there)...because some of those mistakes, especially with C++, will lead to strange and unpredictable results!

P.S. Just the other night I got Windows to completely lock up and caused the video card to go all wiggy. I also discovered new beeps on my machine I've never heard before!

bgmacaw
http://vbnotebookfor.net/

Often you'll find that the real challenge in software development is understanding the requirements and having good communication between the developer and the users rather than in writing the actual code.

If the company you are going to be working for is specializing in providing software development services to US based companies spend some time continuing to improve your ability to read, write and speak English and take the time to study American business culture. Since poor communication is often a serious problem in offshored projects, having this skill will make you very valuable to your employer.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

littleguru wrote:

W3bbo wrote:Learn s'more, go study for an MCAD/MCSD qualification, that'll definately broaden your horizons.

You sure? I have heard they are not very challanging - nor extending the view. But I have just heard that.

No, that's stuff like MCSE, not really worth the paper its printed on, but better than nothing (at least it shows you know Windows sysadmin).

I have it from a good source that MCSD is a pretty hard qualification to get (but MCAD is an order of magnitude easier), in either case, there's no chance a cowboy developer can easily land one of those.

andy_hanger18

Gotta say, you're quite lucky to get employed as a software engineer while this area is still new to you. Not many companies would give people such a chance.

The best advice where writing software is concerned is that its easy to write software that works when people do, or things happen the way you envisaged when you wrote it. The hardest part is making sure your software continues to function when things don't happen as you'd expect. Thats my distinction between good and great software.

Good luck

footballism
Another Paradigm Shift!

DoomBringer wrote:

I think you should have a Design Patterns book on your shelf. It helps a lot during system design. If you're doing Win32, have Petzold's Programming Windows.
Finally, always learn. Learning new things is good.

The company I'm going to is focussed on .NET related development, but anyway, knowledge in Win32 is still very important when doing pinvoke:).

I just have too many books at hand. and I've read several good books multiple times. Design Patterns related books are something I am gonna pick up.

Sheva

footballism
Another Paradigm Shift!

W3bbo wrote:
Learn s'more, go study for an MCAD/MCSD qualification, that'll definately broaden your horizons.

I hate cerficates, tests and exams. I don't think I can learn any practical knowledge from those stuff, I think reading books, articles, and blogs and communicating with others can learn much more.

Anyway, thanks for your advice, I've heard some of companies in Shanghai does provide high-paid job to those who are qualified for MCAD/MCSD.

Sheva

footballism
Another Paradigm Shift!

fdisk wrote:
Minh wrote:Do things. Make mistakes. Best way to learn.
Unless those mistakes cost billions of dollars, yes. And dedicate a PC in your home to development.

Unfortunately, when I'm in Shanghai, I have to buy a new PC, and what's more, I am quite short in bucks recently.[C]

Sheva

footballism
Another Paradigm Shift!

bgmacaw wrote:

Often you'll find that the real challenge in software development is understanding the requirements and having good communication between the developer and the users rather than in writing the actual code.
If the company you are going to be working for is specializing in providing software development services to US based companies spend some time continuing to improve your ability to read, write and speak English and take the time to study American business culture. Since poor communication is often a serious problem in offshored projects, having this skill will make you very valuable to your employer.

You got it, the company I am gonna work for is actually a software outsourcing companies, it provides software development services to those companies from USA and Europe. I am not a business aware person myself, but I know knowledge in business and business culture is quite important, thanks for your wonderful suggestion.

Sheva

footballism
Another Paradigm Shift!

andy_hanger18 wrote:
Gotta say, you're quite lucky to get employed as a software engineer while this area is still new to you. Not many companies would give people such a chance.

Yup, I am quite lucky indeed, and I think the major reason why they plan to hire me eventually is because I've good knowledge in English and C# Tongue Out

Sheva

andy_hanger18 wrote:

The best advice where writing software is concerned is that its easy to write software that works when people do, or things happen the way you envisaged when you wrote it. The hardest part is making sure your software continues to function when things don't happen as you'd expect. Thats my distinction between good and great software.

Good luck

That's come to the canonical eloquent conlusion: you are not the user of the software you create. Cool