Comment on "Apprenticeship Patterns: Guidance for the Aspiring Software Craftsman"

This article is written in English as I think application is always the best way to improve any kind of language skill, or any kind of skill.

To be honest, I'm not an IT guy. My job is related to Finance and Accounting. Currently, I'm only able to programm in C and simple bourne again shell script. I don't know much about computer. Yep, it's a bit ironic to open my blog on CSDN. But I love programming
even I barely know it. It is well known that programming requires great time investment. I'm going through the accounting exams year on year. I can't spend much time on programming. But I hope the situation will change in the near future.

The most important reason why this blog is here, is about my ambitious dream, that I hope I can blend the knowledge in the two fields and make some useful toys in the future. I want to be a great craftsman.

Why I'm reading this book?

1. The title attracts me. It somewhat aligns with part of my plan.

2. Because recently I'm turning to accounting exam warm-up stage, I can't afford to read or learn the profound knowledge like data structure or algorithm. I picked this one to read in my spare time. To me, this is a kind of book about general knowledge.



I find the book is interesting. The first thing is its writing style. Did you ever notice it resembles a cmd manual, like the man page on Linux. After the first chapter, you can skip, jump to the part (the content is catagorised according to different scenario) which
best fits in you. Of course, you can read through it, totally up to you.

Lots of great programmers share their opinions and experiences in the book, another hacker spirit manifestation. It's much like one of the points the famous article "How to become a hacker" talks about, 'No problem should ever be solved twice'. Read through
the article another masterpiece of general knowledge: http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#believe2
Back to this book, a bit repetitve ideas from chapter to chapter, that's my opinion. The bright side is repetition is good for education, it helps you memorize the concepts. Some of the concepts reassure you as long as you devote yourself, programming won't
let you down unlike a romantic relationship, things get more drama and not subject to the rule. Others alarm you on the mind traps that stop you from making progress, or talk about pragmatic approaches to improving skills. I love the part it talks about a
programmer gave up the programming career at early stage and went to be a family consultant after that he got back to the field. The idea the book reflects is really illuminating and that's rare. I won't explore that part here, go read it yourself.

Another favorite scenario of mine starts on page 107, "Sweep the floor", in chapter 4. Maybe I'm wrong about the scenario title, I'm reading the translated version. It analyses on the scenario that you are the new apprentice to certain project and know little.
In short, it talks about participation leads to improvement which I think I should keep that in mind. The scenario best fits in me at present.

I don't buy the book...haha, nope, not a pun. I mean I don't exchange money for the book. I downloaded it from open source. In my opinion, you don't need to buy it.

Just keep one copy in your PC and flip the pages from time to time.

Review: 2015-Feb-23, many problems... feel like my writing skill is not improving...