Joey, the ElegantCode Apprentice
I recently received an email from Jose Samonte, a developer in the Philippines. Here is the text of that email:
Please pardon me for my unsolicited email, but I believe that you are one of the best in the software community. My name is Joey Samonte, and I’m a C# programmer from the Philippines, but I really want to learn and understand agile software design/development the right way. I didn’t take Computer Science or a similar course in college.
I really want to learn on how to develop real-world applications from ground-up using agile approaches/techniques, while still doing proper analysis and design. I hope you can give me advices sir, since I’m not able to afford good books or trainings. And although being mentored is the better way, it’s pretty difficult to find someone who’s willing to mentor someone like me.
Thank you very much for reading my email. Have a nice day!
Joey
My response to this was to suggest he start a local user group and find some peers. Apparently that’s a bit of a challenge where he lives. I get that; me being from a town that didn’t have 2 stoplights. Money for books and other learning resources is also an issue.
After a few more emails, I decided to go a step further. I have been thinking recently about how the software development community can help budding professionals like Joey. Usually self-organization needs a bootstrapping event, so I thought I’d give it a shot.
- Pluralsight ponied up for 6 months of access to the Pluralsight OnDemand library so that Joey can have access to some learning materials.
- Joey now has an account on ElegantCode.com where he will share his experiences as he learns and grows, like all of us.
Are you in a position to provide any other resources to him? If so, I am sure that would be appreciated.
Finally, as Joey shares his experiences and questions here on Elegant Code, I would as you to help him grow and learn. Let’s see if we can help, folks.
What advice do you have for this young man?
Joey find a good open source project that interests you and contribute to it. This will give you real world experience and the ability to learn from peers, while contributing back to the community.
Get involved with the StackOverflow community. Read and contribute. It’s a great community with a lot of smart people all trying to help everyone.
When he’s ready to start a user group, have him ping me. I have tons of resources for that.
When he’s ready to start a user group, have him ping me. I have tons of resources for that.
My best advice is to teach…
If you want to learn something, the best way to do it is to teach it to someone else.
Another piece of advice is to write with authority about what you believe or what you are doing. If you are wrong, you’ll be corrected. If you are right you will be backed up in your statements.
Either way, you’ll get much more feedback writing with authority than not.
I’ve recently posted a presentation on slideshare I used to present with on local user groups on the topic of Software Engineering. http://www.slideshare.net/nstjelja/sofware-engineering
+1 on the open-source project!
My advice would be “steal”.
Open source project is very good advice, but for me books are the basics. If you want to be real professional and you are not some kind of genius who develop from third grade then you have to read and learn from real masterminds.
This is why if Joey cannot afford $100 per year on books (or $50 or $5), then there are sites and p2p networks that can provide almost any IT book. It’s a great shame to steal, especially from people you admire but sometimes we’re not in the position to judge. When things change in his country or with his wealth, Joey can start making some peace with his conscience by buying book(s) that he liked most.
@3fb4f016b33597cdf92fb6e72e1ca130:disqus
Maybe you missed the part where I secured free training resources, just by asking. I record content for Pluralsight and I know that people steal my work as torrents and such. I really appreciate that I was asked for help instead of being stolen from.
well you should ask your peers Joey Samonte at NNIT or better ask Kaz Moghim of Logiquests – he’s the main man