Do you typically learn new things through new on-the-job tasks and needs, or is it spare time and interest-based?
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Do you typically learn new things through new on-the-job tasks and needs, or is it spare time and interest-based?
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Latest comments (30)
Being a primarily react shop, we are pretty tied to that framework and don't really deviate much. I usually take new tools or frameworks as an excuse to build something out and learn new things but in most cases this happens outside of work hours.
I use whatever tools I can that feel helpful to me. Last year I took up IntelliJ over Eclipse and then VSCode over Notepad++ both changes are a big win. I wrote more in depth notes previously.
What Text Editors Do You Use?
Corey McCarty ・ Feb 7 ・ 3 min read
These wound up coming along with Markdown adoption discussed here:
Using Markdown for Notes
Corey McCarty ・ Jan 13 ・ 3 min read
With the work from home stuff currently, I've been bound to a remote/virtual dev environment without install privledges. This has led me to use Eclipse (which I've come to loathe) while VSCode is available.
I try to do learning as I'm doing work tasks. If I have down time, then I'll work on learning something unrelated. When I learned Markdown it was so that I could consolidate my work notes with multiple languages inline. I've picked up Groovy to work on Jenkins pipelines at work. I actually track my things to learn in my bullet journal so that I might weigh the different things as I go. I wrote about that as well.
Always Be Learning
Corey McCarty ・ Mar 20 ・ 5 min read
I've worked in mostly agencies the last 4 years so a lot less red tape, but also a lot less process overall. So you can pick whatever you want, but the responsibility/risk is all on you if it doesnt work, works less efficient...etc. So it teaches you the value of sustainability vs shiny object syndrome at times, and others its cool, I was using React Hooks in code soon as I got the hang of it. Just started writing them anywhere I could in new code especially. But had something went wrong with that? It would've been all on me.
When I was starting as a dev, at work I learned super fast and at home I consolidated the lack of knowledge (patterns, language, tools, best practices, etc.).
Now I try to expand the scope of the task to introduce or apply new cool stuff I'm interested into (but it can be frustrating if we cross it with deadlines...). Side projects or Open Source at home is what makes me happy now.
Definitely self directed. But to be clear if I needed to learn something on the job I'd definitely consider spending some amount of time outside of work on it. You have enough to learn about the specific task, implementation etc.., that you don't really want to have the overhead of understanding the basic mechanisms of the technology as you are doing it. You aren't going to master anything without spending significant time, and if it doesn't interest you, you aren't going to do that in your own time. But at least you want to understand the basics so that you can communicate effectively.
At this point in time, it's both! A few years ago, I was learning very little on the job (if anything) so I decided to take classes outside of work and eventually went back to get my Master's while working full time.
As a result of getting my Master's, I'm now in a role that is very different from anything I've done up to this point so I've done a mix of on-the-job learning (which I do both on and off of job time) and learning on my spare time about things that I'm really interested in. It's refreshing (and humbling) to be in a role where I'm starting from scratch and learning as I go, though it can be tiring at times. 😅
For us, it is all about the project. If we are editing an existing system, obviously the choice is already made for us. We LOVE the projects we start from scratch and have full decision making around technologies.
Self-directed all the way. Here's what companies do often, the folks in the trenches carry on the legacy things. They are experts many times over. When new stuff is needed companies reach for outsider consultants. Many of which don't have the depth they are looking for in that new thing! I've witnessed multi-million dollar consultant deals whereby the consultants themselves weren't on to the latest greatest, they were just legacy people in their own/other area.
The truly new stuff takes a lot of time to really get it, without self direction nobody is going to lead our careers. The only issue here is that you need to find a job in that new area (as a greenhorn) to get the proper pressure needed to become a SME.
I find myself to be relatively self-motivated for things that I am interested in.
However, I'm also unaware of a lot of cool technologies out there that I would want to learn if I only knew about them. The industry moves rapidly and there's only so much that I can detect on my radar. Because of this, I noticed myself getting motivated a lot by talking to my coworkers and just seeing what they're up to. I'm blessed to be working with a group of engineers that have a wide range of skills and knowledge that I don't have.
Mostly spare time!