Learning by Doing
Code School Book — Morgan Lopes and Tim Whitacre (9/30)
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When you board an airplane, you have peace of mind knowing it’s not the pilot’s first flight.
I f you’re in school, you’ve likely heard before, “Alright class, let’s build a to-do list app.” How many times have you built something that looks like some version of a to-do app? If you haven’t heard this already, you will. Building simple, repetitive things like this can be frustrating, but it is one of the best ways to improve your coding skills.
Don’t worry, this section is not going to be about the benefits of building a to-do app, but rather about the need to continually learn through taking action. People learn best by doing. Whether you want to pick up a new sport, learn a new musical instrument, speak a foreign language or get better at writing JavaScript, nothing compares to diving in and doing the work. There’s a reason the apprenticeship model still exists, and why so many industries require internships or residencies. You need to spend time actively participating in a skill before you can become good at it. When we go to the doctor, we assume it’s not their first time seeing a patient or their first time administering a shot.
When you board an airplane, you have peace of mind knowing it’s not the pilot’s first flight. Most software engineers aren’t programming pacemakers or involved in high-stakes industries, but the need for seasoned, battle-tested experience is no less important. Taking action will not guarantee expertise, but it is a requirement to getting there. It’s important to spend as much time learning and doing the work as you can.
This feels like an appropriate place to insert a mindset shift from our friend Rose Lake, Software Engineer at Stitch Fix. Rose says, “Supplemental learning is paramount. Students can’t expect their bootcamp instructor to give them all the knowledge they need. Expect to use YouTube, Stack Overflow, language specific docs, mentors, etc., to enhance your understanding of the material you’re learning.”
Experience, from every front, leads to expertise. Pop culture is quick to claim “natural talent” but the journey to greatness is often overlooked. Year after year, we hear stories of “the overnight success.” It’s a myth. Michael Jordan, arguably the greatest basketball player of his era, was the first to arrive at practice and the last to leave. The Wright Brothers, creators of the first airplane, spent years crashing into sandy dunes before their plane took flight. Thomas Edison conducted thousands of experiments before his lightbulb breakthrough. Getting good requires work. A lot of it. Anders Ericsson wrote an excellent book, Peak, on the topic of mastery. Despite traditional wisdom, Ericsson argues that consistent, deliberate practice is the only path to expertise.
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