The part to becoming a good programmer, A guide to Infiltrating the programming market straight out of University

I have been programming commercially for almost 3 years and at some point during that time, I formed a very good habit of reading programming related books during my less than comfortable journey to work using the London underground. This way I have managed to read quite a lot of books, from new programming languages, API’s, Frameworks etc, without even budgeting any extra time for it. When I first started of as a programmer straight out of university after studying software Engineering, I found it difficult to get up to speed in the commercial world as although a university education in computing helps a lot, it definitely wasn’t enough. This was my main rational for seeking additional knowledge.

Over the years with many books read, I have looked back and thought about which of the books really made the most impact on the start of my programming career. 2 books immediately spring to mind. Sun Certified Java Programmer and Head First Design Patterns.

I believe that to be a good programmer, you should be fluent in your understanding of the core concept of the primary programming language of your expertise. For most students, although a university degree in computing fills most of the gap most universities leave there student still lacking in some of the core concepts that employers are looking for.

During my first job straight after university, I started preparing for my java certification exam by picking up a copy of SCJP for java 5. As someone who has always excelled in programming at university, I was amazed at the amount of knowledge I acquired from this book, all the gaps and holes in my understanding of the core concepts of object oriented programming was sequentially filled as I progressed through the whole book. This book probably made the most contribution to the kind of programmer that I have become, confident and fluent in writing syntactically error free code.

The point that I am trying to make is that if you’re really serious about programming as a career especially if your programming knowledge is acquired via university education, I would definitely recommend reading a certification book of the programming language of choice even if you don’t take the exam. For most students still looking for entry level programming jobs, this will definitely give you the edge over other student applicants and will impress your employers so much that they will probably hire you on the spot (don’t quote me on this although am speaking from personal experience). Even experienced programmers with 10 to 15 years under there belt still take away substantial amount of new knowledge from such books.

The second book that made the most impact on my programming skills was a design patterns book. Design Pattern in respect to programming addresses recurring solutions to common problems in software design. Here are some advantages of using design patterns as stated in the OnJava website (http://www.onjava.com/pub/a/onjava/2002/01/16/patterns.html) as well as other advantages which I added myself:
• They capture engineering experience.
• Once described, any level engineer can use the pattern.
• They allow for reuse without having to reinvent the wheel on a project-by-project basis.
• They allow for us, as engineers, to better define system structure.
• They provide a design vocabulary.
• They also provide reusable artefacts.
• They promote maintainability, Scalability and extendibility.
• Most patterns promote ease of change with less scope for bug introduction.

Design patterns, originally pioneered by a group of programmers known commonly as the gang of four (GoF) who released the original book called Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software in 1994. Since its release, it was highly influential in the field of software engineering and is regarded as an important source for object orientated design theory and practice.

What design patterns did for me as a programmer was to introduce me not only to common designs which have been known to counter bad solutions to common problems, It also gave me common vocabularies which where understood by most of my colleagues which meant less time explaining design concepts during meeting. But the most important thing about design patterns is that these solutions have been used and reused over and over again on different projects, modified and proven as a good solution to the design problems which they tend to.

Programming is not a new profession. The first electronic programmable computer is widely held to be Colossus, developed in 1942-43 in England. It was used to crack the Enigma codes which were encrypted orders relayed by the Germans in World War II. Although programming is a relatively new profession in relationship to lots of other professions like medicine, trading, prostitution etc, it is one of the most innovative, constantly changing, thriving and vibrant profession with lots of communities and knowledge base with lots of programmers who have gained years of experience and actively share those experiences in the various programming books and communities. As a new programmer you are better off getting up to speed with lessons learned from the past so as to not repeat mistakes that already have well established solution. Design Patterns is probably one of the best examples of doing this.

So to conclude this document, I would say that out of personal experience, I found that reading a certification book and a design patterns book made the most impact on the start of my programming career. After reading a certification book, I went from struggling at interviews to getting an offer from all the companies that interviewed me within a week margin. I also found that reading a design patterns book not only helped me write better codes its also aided in my understanding of the more difficult programming API like Spring and J2EE and therefore is a good stepping stone to career progression through acquisition of knowledge of new programming languages, frameworks API, etc.

I hope you find this document useful

Franklin Ike
Software Engineer