Live to Love to Learn

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

– Confucius

These are a few thoughts on the importance of learning. It's a theme I've been dwelling on lately, as I've been rapidly learning a lot of new technologies, skills, and languages. I am writing on the topic in my Professionalism in Programming magazine column, and will be talking on the subject at a couple of conferences this year.

This blog entry is addressed to software developers, as I am a software developer. However I believe it's applicability extends beyond software development...

Learning to learn

Programming is a creative, intuitive process. I, like many other programmers, like to think of it as an artistic pursuit; one of working a medium to produce something of utility and beauty. But all too often the commercial reality of coding is something more akin to being placed in a meat grinder, until every last ounce of coding prowess and motivation has been sucked from your soul.

Nonetheless, programming is an exciting and dynamic field to work in. One of the main reasons is that there is always something new to learn. Rarely are programmers forced to run around in circles performing the same repeated task for years and years, only discovering new ways to develop RSI and failing eyesight. We continually face the unknown: new problems, new situations, new teams, new technologies, or some combination of these. True, some programming jobs face more excitement than others, more of the unknown than others, and garner more techie thrills. But if you're going to be stuck in an office sat behind a desk, you may as well keep your mind occupied.

We are continually challenged to learn, to increase our skills and our capabilities. If you feel like you're stagnating in your career, one of the most practical steps you can take to get out of the rut is to take the effort to learn something new. On purpose.

Now, some people are naturally better at absorbing new information and “getting up to speed” more rapidly than others. They are better at taking on new concepts and relating new concepts to gather a greater understanding. That's natural. But it's something we can all improve at. You need to take charge of your learning.

Check point

Ask yourself now whether learning is something that you think about consciously as a programmer? Is it something you consider as one of your programming skills? Do you actively try to learn things? Do you willingly put yourself into areas of the unknown? Or do you try to stick to what you know best, looking for an easy life?

Are you motivated as a programmer to find out new information and improve yourself? Do you relish learning? Or is it something of an inconvenience?

Do you want to improve as a programmer? I suspect that in this regard I'm preaching to the converted in this article. An ACCU member reading CVu clearly wants to widen their knowledge. Well done, give yourself a pat on the back! The simple fact is this: if you want to improve as a programmer, you need to be a skilled and seasoned learner. And you need to learn to enjoy it.

So lets think about the what, why and how...

Why learn?

Sometimes you have no choice but to learn; you are faced with a new task and you know nothing about the technology or the problem domain. You've got to get up to speed, and fast. Often the killer problem is that you have no time to do this in, and have to make a work estimate or deliver the first bit of functionality before you'd even have time to gather the vaguest overview of the topic.

The programmer's lot is not a happy one.

But even when you're coasting – working on reserve knowledge, with no need for new information – it's important to keep the grey cells ticking over and absorb new knowledge. One important reason is to simply cultivate a good learning habit; to maintain your ability to absorb information. Continually learning also helps to shape your programming attitude; to prevent you from believing that you're an expert! No one likes a know-it-all, after all.

There are plenty of other good reasons to develop yourself by learning. Your motivation might be to keep yourself fresh, to sharpen your existing skills, or simply to satisfy your natural curiosity. Or the reason might be more mercenary: the strengthen your employability, or allow you to manoeuvre into a programming field you're more interested in.

If you don't keep up a habit of continual learning you will go stale. You'll stagnate. The technological world will pass you by.

This demonstrates a simple learning maxim: Learning. You've either got to, or you ought to.

What to learn?

There's a whole world of things you could attempt to pick up. So what should you look at? Donald Rumsfeld summed up this conundrum in a particularly apt way when he made an infamous White House press conference: As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don't know we don't know.

So what do you pick? Clearly not something you know you know (although learning a topic more deeply, or attempting to consolidate your knowledge on a topic is a valuable task). Instead should you chose something that you know you don't know, or first learn about what you don't know in order to chose what to learn? That might make your brain bleed. Thanks a bunch, Rumsfeld.

Perhaps the list below will help. If you are learning for “fun and personal profit” rather than your job leading you to a specific topic, you might consider:

• Learn a new technology. For programmers this is the obvious choice. We're fascinated by the different ways we can make electrons dance, and there's a wide field here to mine.

You might choose to find out about a new programming language; there is no shortage of new and interesting languages being developed, there are many widely-used languages that you could learn to gain employability-enhancing skills, and there are many interesting existing languages. Consider looking at a language that promotes a different paradigm to your current languages to learn new ways to approach and solve problems – perhaps a functional programming language like Haskell would be a good choice. In their classic 1999 book, the Programmatic Programmers recommended learning one new language every year [1]. It's good advice. You don't have to become an expert, but do get beyond “Hello, World!”

You could instead choose to learn a new library or application framework; perhaps an interesting low-level utility or a snazzy new high-level UI toolkit. After all, you can never have enough UI toolkits.

Or learn a new software tool. You should never underestimate the usefulness of learning new tools that will make your work more productive and/or more enjoyable. Learn how to use a new text editor, or IDE. Learn a new documentation tool or a test framework. Learn a new build system, an issue tracking system, a source control system (indulge yourself in the new distributed version control craze that all the cool kids are going on about), a new operating system, and so on.

Even if you are not going to use the new technology immediately in your “day job”, learning about it will almost certainly help you to use your existing technology in better ways, and will help you to evaluate new technologies when the need arises.

• Learn new technical skills. You might want to learn how to more effectively read code, or write technical documentation. You could learn how to manage a software team and climb the greasy career ladder.

• Learn how to work with people. Yes, this is tediously “touchy-feely” for most code monkeys. But it can be an incredibly interesting field, and very useful. You could look at sociology, or study some management texts. This kind of information will help you to become a much more capable team worker, and will enable you to lead teams into directions that you think they should go in, rather than suffer in silence. It will help you to understand how people are communicating to you, and how to communicate effectively with them. You'll discover how to understand your customer better, and filter their requirements.

• Learn a new problem domain. Maybe you always wanted to write mathematical modelling software, or do audio DSP work. Without any experience or knowledge you'd be unlikely to fall into a job in a new sphere, so give yourself a head start and begin to learn about it. Then work out how to get practical, demonstrable experience.

• Learn how to learn. Seriously! Perhaps you could invest your time into finding out some new learning techniques that will help you absorb knowledge more effectively. Do you find there's a constant barrage of information you need to tap in to, and it just seems to flow past you? Investigate ways to seek out, consume, and absorb knowledge. There's a whole lot more to this than I can cover in these C Vu articles, after all! Consider learning and practicing new skills such as mind mapping and speed reading.

• Learn something completely different. Or, more interestingly, you may prefer to choose something completely left-field with no relevance to your day job, and no obvious software applicability. Learn a new foreign language, a musical instrument, a new branch of science, art or philosophy. Hey, even spirituality. Far from being a pointless waste of time, or a distracting personal hobby, doing this will open your world view wider. If you're willing to look for the interesting themes and techniques you will certainly find that it helps to inform the way you program.

Above all, pick something that interests you. Pick something that will benefit you (the act of learning in itself is a benefit, but choosing something because it will give you fresh usable skills, broadens your insight, or brings you pleasure is a good thing). You will be investing a significant amount of time, so invest wisely!