Technical Consultants

As a consultant and application development person, I have to learn new things all the time. Take for example, my work with JavaFX. The language does have some familiar aspects, but there is a lot new there too. How do you go about learning something new? I have come up with some guidelines that I use in learning new things (in this case a language):

• Read as much about it as you can first. No one wants to wade through tomes of technical information, but that is where you learn. I try to get a feel for what problem the new thing is trying to solve first.
• Understand the core elements. Whether it's a programming language, a car, or a philosophical construct, knowing how it works is the first step. I know it's time to go to the next step when I have some ideas on how to use the item, and I start formulating a project.
• Examine and breakdown examples, if you can. You would be surprised at how many application development people think they're “smart enough” to figure out how things work just by following a few examples. I don't know about you, but I don't figure out a complex things just from a few simple “Hello World” examples. That being said, seeing how things works is the quickest to way get a basic understanding. Couple that with knowledge you acquired by reading the manual, and you get the “why” of how it's put together.
• Create your own knowledge base. I like to Google more than most people, but things do need to get done. I will create a separate folder to contain links to examples, other application development team members' blogs, white papers and other documentation. If you can, create a “how-to” WIKI. Having a centrally located repository makes it simple to answer questions.
• Create a test project. I do this especially for languages. I create a test project where I can test specific “how do I?” questions. It keeps you from removing code, adding unnecessary functions, and commenting and uncommenting code in your main project. Figure it out in its own project first, then transfer the code and knowledge to your main project. It is always good to revisit it after a period inactivity.
• Write or teach what you learned. As application development people, we tend to get blinders on when doing something. Having a different set eyes, or different questions being asked makes you examine what you actually know.

   

So there's my “Secret Sauce” for learning. You still have to come up with ideas on how to utilize you knowledge though.