Professional Development Prework

EvanWheeler_professional_prework.md

Professional Development Prework

1. "Use Google very aggressively" resonates with me the most. From what I have learned so far of coding, there is way more information than I will ever truly be able to learn. Being able to reasearch effectively and assimilate other people's understanding of a language is an invaluable tool. I also agree that becoming a power user of your development environment is critical. If the environment can help do some of the work, or speed up coding times, it is an asset and should be used to its fullest. Finally, move fast and break things. You learn more from failure than from success.

2. In his book "The Checklist Manifesto" Atul Gawand expands on what he learned from Boeing. Boeing had introduced a new model, and were experiencing a large number of crashes, mostly on takeoff and landing. The new model plane was complex and requried very specific actions from the pilots that were being forgotten. They introduced a checklist and the number of crashes dropped dramatically. It had to do with the complexity of the tasks. Small things can be forgotten, even by the most capable of people. Coding is a complicated task, and is not inherently intuitive. Creating checklists can help reduce bugs, ensure completeness, and even guide productivity and scheduling. This applies as much to a student as to an experienced programmer.

3. I have some experience managing a team that used strengths-based development. I think the ideology is an excellent tool, and I think it should be a regular excercise. Like Brian Bim says in his article, understanding and dealing with weaknesses is good for both an individual and their team. My personal strengths are; I learn quickly and am driven to solve a problem once it is identified. This perseverence can turn into stubborness sometimes, and so as part of my development at Turing, I hope to work on time management skills to compliment my other strengths.