The OP was incredibly lucky to find a mentor like Jurgen. Being handed a thoroughly "proofread" review of your work is perhaps the best way to improve at almost anything. Unfortunately, creating such high quality feedback demands more time than most people are willing to spend, especially if it's above and beyond their normal duties.
The Apprentice Programmer
21–30 of 156 posts
Re: The Apprentice Programmer
#22The OP was incredibly lucky to find a mentor like Jurgen. Being handed a thoroughly "proofread" review of your work is perhaps the best way to improve at almost anything. Unfortunately, creating such high quality feedback demands more time than most people are willing to spend, especially if it's above and beyond their normal duties.
I find that Github pull request style discussions are a good approximation of this ideal which strikes a great balance between effort required and social acceptability.
Re: The Apprentice Programmer
#23The OP was incredibly lucky to find a mentor like Jurgen. Being handed a thoroughly "proofread" review of your work is perhaps the best way to improve at almost anything. Unfortunately, creating such high quality feedback demands more time than most people are willing to spend, especially if it's above and beyond their normal duties.
I wonder if a company that stressed a role like this up the career ladder as an alternative to a high-level architect role would see much success.
Re: The Apprentice Programmer
#24I feel like confirmation bias is in play when you read about successful people who have dropped out of school, succeed, and then blogged about it. You have to keep in mind the hordes of people who have followeded a similar path only to archive not enough to blog about. Self education may appeal to many of us here, but it applies to less than it appeals to.
There's also a bias if you look at dropouts as a homogeneous group, because they aren't. It's just as ludicrous to predict the same outcome for someone like me, who was always way ahead and bored to death of school, and a poor kid from the city or country who couldn't read at grade level.
I doubt Tobi ever had reading comprehension problems and I bet he was passionate about his hobby leading up to his track switch.
As for me, I'm a high school drop out and everybody told me "You'll end up stacking shelves at 7-11!" because that's what dropouts do. They made the same mistake you are accusing us of making, when we talk about our own pasts. I knew several outstanding HS and college dropouts among my online friends at the time and they inspired me to stop wasting my life. I'm so glad they did.
Re: The Apprentice Programmer
#25I work for a US company and have had a similar experience to what is described here! My employer had that type of practical education, and so even though I have a bachelor's in Physics I am working as a programmer, gaining valuable experience and feedback.
Re: The Apprentice Programmer
#26This is well written, but I feel as though I'm missing something. The best way to get better at being a career programmer is to be a career programmer. This is understandable! And the author's initiative at 16 years of age to identify his passions and stick with them at the exclusion of higher education is commendable. But I've learned a whole, whole lot in college -- and yes, I completely agree with the author that…
I dropped out of school (college equiv.), started parachuting from airplanes and solid objects, joined the military, dropped out of the military, ended up as a software developer.
All that matters in the end is that you like what you do. And if you don't, you can always quit. You might not always know what you want, but you'll figure it out.
Re: The Apprentice Programmer
#27[deleted]
Re: The Apprentice Programmer
#28As someone who essentially went the same route (though I finished high school, and took a slightly more circuitous route), I've often wondered what I missed out on by not going to college.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think it would have made much of a difference in where I'm at in my career, but I wonder about the rest of me. The people I know who went to college tended to have social experiences that I didn't have (though perhaps working at a startup these days offers some of that). They took classes in subjects that I have only a basic understanding of (physics, chemistry, politics). In some sense of the phrase, they're more "well rounded".
I'm not certain how much that matters. Maybe it doesn't matter at all.
Re: The Apprentice Programmer
#29[deleted]
Are you in the Austrian or the German system?
Re: The Apprentice Programmer
#30I wish I could have done this. My career was sink or swim over and over.
Also, the lilies question is the kind of thing people screw up all the time.
I worked with no master teacher. I had colleagues who regarded me as competition and would angle their bodies so I couldn't see what they were typing on the command line.