Being a better prorgammer

Every now and then when I’m feeling nice and confident about whatever it is I’m doing, something will come along and knock me down a peg or two. Lately I’ve been feeling really good about my development skills. I’ve been thinking a lot about things like refactoring, architecture, reusability, maintainability. I feel that while I’m not a master yet, I think I am well on my way to honing my Jedi skills in the area of software development. That is until today. Today Joel published an essay about how the schools these days are focusing in on the wrong things (pushing Java and not other languages that require more thinking) and basically not pushing the students hard enough. The article is here:The Perils of JavaSchools After reading the article I was pretty depressed. I thought I was doing ok, but now I think I need to make sure I master the art of thinking, not just the art of implementing whatever Sun (or whoever) is spouting about this week. Like Bea, if I am to survive the cruel tutelage of Pai Mei, I will simply have to buckle down and do it. Nothing worth having comes easy, and having the knowledge (and the power that comes with it) that Joel speaks of is something worth having. It looks like it is time to break out the Little Lisper and begin the training…