Teaching software is harder than writing it

Reflections on my first year as a bona fide teacher.

Being in the trenches of software development for 28 years, I’ve seen a lot. Writing software is HARD!

I remember an article that surfaced back in 2011 titled “Yes, Virginia, Scala is hard.” It was written by a prominent fan of Scala that seriously challenged some of what Scala embraced.

What it kicked off was a furious debate in multiple platforms that IMHO was about the trade off between more powerful constructs vs constructs used by the masses.

I’m not here to revisit THAT debate.

What I’m here to dig into is another age old wrinkle…training up the next generation of pro coders.

You may not know this but I used to study martial arts. Unfortunately I had to give it up due to arthritis in my knees. But something I had learned at the time was how to teach others.

There’s a mantra thst says:

The fastest way to learn something is to teach it to someone else.

That may sound kooky or flat out wrong. But it’s actually true.

You see to teach someone else, you need a certain amount of understanding yourself. Not 100%. But enough to get the basics.