Training Curriculum for Junior Programmers

1. Overview

Many of us are self-taught programmers in software development. Therefore, we often require a curriculum to learn and master the art of programming.

Not only a curriculum helps to achieve the learning goal efficiently but, it promotes self-discipline too.

In this article, we'll discuss a Training Curriculum for Full Stack Java Programmers (Junior).

Such a curriculum is usually used in companies like TCS and Infosys to groom fresh talents joining as Trainee Engineers (or Freshers). It helps them to learn software development, improves efficiency, and makes them ready for future assignments.

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2. Training Curriculum

This training curriculum is in two phases - Foundation and Advanced Phase.

Foundation Phase focuses on concept building through theory and quick hands-on.

Furthermore, the Advanced Phase lets the programmers create an end-to-end web application utilizing all the learnings of the Foundation Phase.

3. Foundation Phase

The foundation phase is about learning the Java programming language along with OOP concepts and advanced features like
Collections, Multi-Threading, Garbage Collection. Then, we should focus on learning Database, SQL, and WEB UI.

Afterward, the knowledge of a few build tools like Gradle, frameworks like JUnit, helper tools like GIT & and SDLC methodologies like Agile will also be required.

Here, I've put each step into a box to segregate them from others. Also, we don't have a particular order of the steps.

A trainee can self-decide his order, moving from more interesting/relevant topics to the less significant ones.

Also, don't forget to follow a code review checklist and best practices for delivering better code.

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4. Advanced Phase

The Advanced Phase is the time to use the skills developed in the Foundation Phase.

It's all about integrating the learning to create a Web Application, follow a few steps of the SDLC like code review and code check-in, and learn about frameworks like Spring, Hibernate, and Grails that add value in day-to-day programming activities.

5. Extras

Here, let's discuss a few other things that can give an extra edge to a Programmer in their day-to-day work:

• Data Structures
• Algorithms
• Design Patterns
• Data Formats - JSON/XML
• Functional Programming - Lambda Expressions, Java Streams
• Scripting - Groovy/Python

6. Conclusion

In this article, we discussed a training curriculum for Junior Programmers that aspire to be Java Full Stack Programmer and want to be productive quickly.

First, we explored the Foundation Phase that helps to develop a few skills. Then, we examined the Advanced Phase that prepares a programmer to utilize each skill learned in the Foundation Phase to be productive.

Last, we discussed some bonus concepts that can give an extra edge to a programmer over others.

Although, the curriculum is mainly targeting Java developers. However, we can replace Java with any technology like .Net, Python, and C++.

The idea is to learn the basics of a programming language with tools and methodologies that help a Full Stack Programmer be efficient, productive, and competent.

Please let me know your thoughts on the points discussed.

Thanks for reading!