OSCON 2008 proceedings are now online (Ok, I discovered them today). Much stuff worth reading. One that I particularly liked was the presentation on 'Apprenticeships on Open Source' by Hoover and Tatnall (find it here).
They promote a apprentice-journeymen-master approach to the field of software. This approach has had phenomenal success with construction activities of the past (eg Buildings). The idea is to apply a similar approach to software construction. Looking at software more as an art than a science. And as the saying goes (I think it was DEK), "Everything we learn to do, we learn by doing", this seems to be true for the software field. But there are issues (which the authors identify). Finding skilled people who are willing to mentor and finding the resources (time, money etc). One thing that aided the masters of the past was that their construction activities were seen as a duty towards god. That probably took care of willingness and resources both. Such is clearly not the case with software.
But that doesn't mean the situation is hopeless. There are good people both willing to teach and to learn (or so I like to think). The thing is, YMMV. And you can always turn to master G.
Another good one is 'How to become Normal, A guide for developers' (here). Well, it is not what the title may suggest, but good nonetheless.
Also 'Ruby 1.9: what to expect' is a quite interesting one (here). It's heartening to see that "abcd"[2] will finally return "c" and not 99.
They promote a apprentice-journeymen-master approach to the field of software. This approach has had phenomenal success with construction activities of the past (eg Buildings). The idea is to apply a similar approach to software construction. Looking at software more as an art than a science. And as the saying goes (I think it was DEK), "Everything we learn to do, we learn by doing", this seems to be true for the software field. But there are issues (which the authors identify). Finding skilled people who are willing to mentor and finding the resources (time, money etc). One thing that aided the masters of the past was that their construction activities were seen as a duty towards god. That probably took care of willingness and resources both. Such is clearly not the case with software.
But that doesn't mean the situation is hopeless. There are good people both willing to teach and to learn (or so I like to think). The thing is, YMMV. And you can always turn to master G.
Another good one is 'How to become Normal, A guide for developers' (here). Well, it is not what the title may suggest, but good nonetheless.
Also 'Ruby 1.9: what to expect' is a quite interesting one (here). It's heartening to see that "abcd"[2] will finally return "c" and not 99.
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