How Do You Get to Silicon Valley?

Posted by Mike Blake Thu, 22 Feb 2007 14:50:00 GMT

Practice.

Music

When Tony Macaluso invites me to play bass at a gig, I need to prepare. Before I even start rehearsing songs, I break out my Rickenbacker and warm up with some scales.

Programming

When I’m invited to help out with a software project I’m expected to hit the ground running. Each project might require a different area of expertise. How do I warm up? I usually have reserched the problem domain beging even before interviewing for the gig. But now there’s a more precise method analogous to playing scales.

Pragmatic Programmer Dave Thomas has begun a blog called CodeKata . He already has about 15 different exercises created to help us programmers practice our craft.

The Kata touch on a variety of common problem domains in software development. There are the standard programming 101 issues including Sorting it Out and Karate Chop. And there are several design exercises like Hashes vs. Classes and Supermarket Pricing.