Vish's Journey in Computer Science

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the textbook “Apprenticeship Patterns”. I wish I had read it much earlier in life. It is very inspiring and inculcates enormous wisdom to young aspiring professionals across all trades but more particularly in Software Domain.

I found it very interesting that the book discourages aspiring Software development practitioners to discard the path of aspiring to become middle managers or C-Suite honchos. It states in very clear terms that becoming managers would mean that we become armchair experts and lose the grip on ground realities soon. It emphasizes the fact that we should focus on becoming better in a consistent manner in our Software development craft without being greedy about material gains or false perspective on what conventional society considers as success. For e.g… Society considers a Senior Vice President or CIO more successful than a dedicated Staff Engineer. But the Staff Engineer has dedicated their life to becoming good at what they started in their youth and get a sense of fulfillment from their work.

The reading has caused me to change my opinion. I now learnt that I should always strive to be in teams where I am the poorest or weak aptitude wise. This gives me opportunity to learn from professionals who are much better than me and gain from their enormous experience. Before reading this book, I aspired to find jobs that would provide me with a comfort zone. I cherished reading the quote by C.S. Lewis in “Learning in Wartime” in this book. The quote states that “The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come”. This is a very inspiring quote that compels us to get into the grind without waiting for perfect weather.

So far, I have not found anything that I disagree with in this book. However, I would be curious to know the author’s perspective on this topic in this age of Generative AI. How should Software Interns and apprentices hone their craft with the advent of Large Language models. This especially considers so many predictions in recent times that this entire skill and the demand for it will soon die down. Agentic AI will replace Software Engineers. I would still assume Software Engineers may be needed to provide human oversight. However, time will tell on this subject.

I think all chapters are important and align well with the over-arching topic. I am going to read and read this book several times during my lifetime. I am grateful for this opportunity.