Change Happens… Change With It
Tools, technology, systems, patterns (etc) continue to evolve. Are we doing the same? As we move through our professional lives there seems to be something that we can always count on: change. One construct we can continue to lean on is that what we are comfortable with today, most definitely changes tomorrow. This is one industry that continues to evolve at a rate that is almost impossible to keep up with.
For most of us, we have our jobs and in these jobs we are working on a certain product(s), being developed with certain tools, targeting certain platforms. I would imagine that a good majority of our situations don’t allow for the incorporation of all the new cutting edge technologies being developed. So if our jobs don’t allow for us to be working on projects that are in line with the latest buzz, how do we continue to sharpen the saw?
Before answering that question a better one might first be, should I care? Yes and no. We cannot feasibly go out and try and learn every new technology that comes about. However, there exists technology that believe it or not can help complement what we do on normal days.
The following is a couple example of how to incorporate continuous learning into the job:
- A good programmer always has a scripting language(s) up their sleeve. If you’re developing on a Windows platform definitely check out PowerShell, which has been touted as a top ten member of “life and work-changing technologies“. Once and a while there are tasks that seem monotonous and many times our approach is a brute force solution. Ever have to search through thousands of source files, making the same change to all? Now I realize there are many ways to skin this cat, but it’s opportunities like these that we coule be taking advantage of to incorporate new ways of solving our most common tasks. It allows us to learn new things while still being productive.
- Port one of your old applications to a new language/platform/etc. It’s hard to sometimes think of applications that one could write just to explore new technologies. Therefore, porting an existing one to something else might be a good route to take. Do you have any of these types of applications sitting around? Maybe something that you wrote eons ago that possibly doesn’t work anymore? Or maybe something that you still use but could use a face-lift?
In my opinion, our minds tend to accept change more naturally by finding ways to incorporate learning into our existing patterns. Change happens… don’t fear it. Rather we should seek out ways to embrace it. By doing this, we can continue to make ourselves more valuable to the organizations we work for and potentially lessen the chances of becoming old and rusty in our skills.
-
If you liked this post it would pretty much rock if you subscribed to saadware via rss.
Leave a Reply