On September 26, 2002 09:03 am, you Tim wrote: > Alan, > --- snip ---- > ... that I am not cut out for programming. > I do not see it that way at all. >
You know. I was in IT for about 12 years before I started with java. Immediately before I started playing with java, I was a VB programmer for 5 years. I started on the java track by reading the magazines. After my third magazine I thought "this is very different from VB. I don't understand any of this. Maybe I'm not cut out for it". I found many of the object oriented concepts (to spit out the buzz words, inheritance, encapsulation, polymorphism) quite hard to get a handle around. So I ignored the magazines for a while, excepting the "for the beginner" articles (there's usually one in every second or so issue), and got a beginner's book on java. I simply worked though the chapters, one by one, doing the exercises and at least thinking though what I would do for the optional exercises. By taking it a chapter at a time, and each chapter typically builds a bit on the previous ones, it slowly fell into place. Java, especially if you consider all of J2SE, J2EE, and J2ME, is a huge body of knowledge and provides techniques for virtually any size IT project, from "Hello world" to complex applications on handheld and wireless devices to world-wide real-time WAN applications. No one can know it all. Anyone who says they do is full of crap. What kind of code is in the real world? Everything mentioned above. As a contractor, I've worked in many companies, and I've never worked in one yet where they ploped a new graduate into the middle of a huge project and said "okay. You're the architect. What do we do now?" You're not expected to know everything about every aspect of Java. Pick a piece and get real comfortable with it. Then add another small piece and figure that out. Just like your lab assignments, don't try to do it all at once. Take it one step at a time. Will you ever be asked to do something you've not done before. You gotta hope - that's how you'll grow. Will you ever write code that you'll look at 2 years later and say "what the heck was I thinking when I wrote that crappy code?" You bet. You'll do that all your career. That what is called "experience." Can you help a company to solve their business processes using java solutions while you're acquiring your experience? You bet. Not every project calls for 100% of the project resources be experts. In the real world, you'll find that projects are made up of multiple people with varying skill and experience levels, as well as each one will bring different ideas and possible solutions to the table. I agree with Alan when he said something like "not everyone is cut out for software engineering". That's true. But just because you're thinking ahead to what you might be expected to do does not mean that YOU are not cut out for it. I often find many employees are simply going though the motions - the write pretty much the same code they always did. Same solutions are always proposed. Sleep walking through. They would never worry about this like you do. You're consciencious, that's all. Don't sell yourself short, but like-wise, don't worry about all the technology that might get tossed at you. It's changing too fast to keep up with it all. Specialize. Keep up with what interests you, and forget about the rest. Keep your mind open to new ways do doing things and you'll go far. Hope this helps, Don Brown ______________________________________________ To change your JDJList options, please visit: http://www.sys-con.com/java/list.cfm
