Will our programming knowledge last?

Question

I actually finish my Master in computer science and I am afraid of the industrial jobs. It seems like everything is changing soo fast and you have to learn new frameworks every year.

Uni was really hard and I hoped, that a job might be more relaxing, but what I heard so far, the learning will never end, when you work in big projects.

Do you have experience and can you answer me, if the work is less challenging than university?

Thank you very much :-)

Answer 1

Response Part 1 of 2:
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Hi @MarlaSinger, good question. Not only is it true you will never stop learning throughout your career, what you've learned so far is just the tip of the iceberg compared to what you will learn moving forward. In fact, you may find that much of what you've learned in school will not be directly applicable, sufficient, or relevant in your day-to-day work. The pace in which you will absorb this new information will take you by surprise. You won't even realize just how much you've learned until, one day, you pause and reflect on just how little you knew immediately after graduation and compare it to the massive volume of information you will effortlessly juggle from day to day.

Don't be alarmed just yet... Contrary to your concerns about the challenge of being able to remember everything, you should take comfort in knowing your style of learning is going to be an amazingly positive experience.

Let me explain... One thing to consider with academic curriculums is the strong emphasis placed on abstract theory outside the context of real world applications resulting in a learning experience that can be rigid, dry, and forced. In school, you are required to examine the full spectrum of a concept or set of interfaces, etc. from which you are tested and graded on. Not fun. Not fun at all.

As you transition from school to career, your learning experience will dramatically shift from theoretical and full spectrum learning within a vacuum to one that is pragmatic, relevant, and focused on solving a specific problem or delivering a specific solution. You will find this new learning experience to be significantly easier, far more interesting, and less challenging than it ever was in school.

Answer 2

I'm not an expert but generally learning never finishes, u will never really reach a point where u don't need to learn anymore, just gotta keep yourself updated

Answer 3

Thank you so much all of you. You wrote so good and explaining answers and i am very happy and motivated now. Thank you. I would like to mark 4 of these answers as best, but I can't :-) Love you

Answer 4

Response Part 2 of 2:
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Without knowing the problems being addressed with these new frameworks, I can see how people are overwhelmed with the options and the many different ways of doing something. Once you realize these frameworks build on what you know and are applying a flavor for one approach or another, your learning will begin to feel more intuitive than rigorous.

Eventually, you'll know what it really means to be a polyglot software developer who feels comfortable working in any language, platform, framework, layer, etc. You'll also begin to crave working on bleeding edge technology, long before there is much documentation available to review. All of this will just come naturally and effortlessly.

Just give it time and allow yourself to build up to this new learning experience. If you know to anticipate it and look for it, you will most certainly reach it much more quickly rather than eventually stumble upon it.

Answer 5

Yes, work is less challenging than university.

But you must realize that, tech skills aside, in order to make money at a job you must also think like a businessman.

You must be able to be forward thinking. Be proactive, come up with ideas that will make or save money. Don't be afraid to cut corners when it makes business sense (make sure that it does make sense).

These are just examples.
My point is like this, you can be a terrible programmer who is stinking rich and you can be the best programmer in the world and be broke.

When it comes to making money, you are both the product and the salesman, the tech skills are just a side requirement that you must satisfy.

So from my experience I would say don't worry about staying up to date. It's a nice idea, but realisticly, most companies aren't changing their tech stack every year. You should be ok if you have a handle on the latest technologies with a five year term(approximation, obviously you can make your own decisions for what is relevant for you) but I don't want you to worry.

You are the cream of the crop, just make sure that you know how to exploit yourself!

Trust me, when you see how bad some of your colleagues are you will understand what I am saying, for every 100 programmers only 1 is actually good.

syntax != programming

planning = programming

Most people are not that good at planning, even though they are great at memorizing syntax.

So as long as you know how to market yourself and stay more or less relevant, you can kick back, relax, and start enjoying the good life!

tl;dr
no need to worry if you can market yourself well

Answer 6

In social science there is a theory about the so called Entreployee (Arbeitskraftunternehmer). Labor changed rapidly.

The biggest difference between University and Work is the need for rapid and flexible adaptability. The deadline for an exam is in three month. The deadline for finding a working solution in business is yesterday. You will learn that you are much more capable in all areas of life, because you will be challenged much more. This is about lifelong learning in all areas, not just work.

Wish you all the best.

Answer 7

Anyone who works in programming must learn constantly. I have been in this for a long time. I started when most of the local inhabitants were not in the world - in 1985. Before 1990, I studied Algol-60, Fortran-66, PL/I, Basic, Assembler for IBM/360-370. From 1990 to 1995 - C, Pascal, Clipper, bat, Assembler for IBM PC. From 1995 to 2005 - Foxpro, Delphi, SQL, VBA, HTML. From 2005 to 2015 - advanced bat, VBS (in Windows Script Host), PL/SQL for Oracle, Access. In 2017 I began to study Python. I went through it three courses online - in Sololearn was the third. And here I began to study other modern languages. This is necessary to maintain its value in the labor market, because knowledge in IT is rapidly becoming obsolete.

Answer 8

Do not become obsolete fundamental knowledge: algorithms, theory of algorithms and other theoretical knowledge. And knowledge of languages ​​must be constantly updated.

Answer 9

@David Carrol
thx man will head on over when I get a chance

Answer 10

Well I am a programmer, but I was studying Civil Engineering. In my opinion everything depends. When I was working as a Civil Engineer it was much harder than studying. However, since I change the industry, I really enjoy my job, and learning. I made a mistake and chosen bad field previously. Now I appreciate what I have, but still regret decision at beggining.

To assume :) Everything has good and bad sides. Focus on good ones :)

Answer 11

Normally a work consist of many repetitive work. But you should always study a little, so you don't stay behind and keep up with innovations and new tools. But I can tell you that normally work is less stressful than university.
Go and find some work that you enjoy! Good luck, and congrats on your master degree!🎇✨✨🎊🎊👏👏👏

Answer 12

@MarlaSinger: I'm glad these answers were helpful.

@All: In case anyone is interested, a few of us also engage on the SoloLearn Dev Slack group.

NOTE: This is an unofficial group that was created by Shane Overby. It's been a good place to chat with others about technical stuff. I like it because I'm on it all the time for work and other groups I belong to. So, if you ever need to contact me directly, or others, pop in and say hi.

You can get the link from the "Let's chat" questions thread:

- https://www.sololearn.com/Discuss/754401/let-s-chat

Sometimes, people will post a question here and then direct message me in Slack to respond here on SoloLearn. Either way... come one, come all.

Answer 13

no it's our destiny to have knowledge in programming

Answer 14

ABSOLUTELY NO GUARANTEES. Especially in the presence of projects like DeepMind and Watson. Let them be smart enough and we all be jobless.....

Answer 15

@MarlaSinger

I've aborted my studies three years ago and work in the industry for five years now. The last two years I've been in a requirement engineer/ developer/ sysadmin role.

My experience is that work can be more relaxing because your workload should be less compared to university.

Nevertheless I'm a 'one man show'. There is no product on the market fullfilling my customers needs (internal colleagues aswell as our external customers) while keeping time to implement low.
This can be a huge psychological burden as I want to keep quality high. A single bug in a new release can mess up your project plan and customer satisfaction.

PS: Created a buisness case this week to get some backup :)

Answer 16

hello, should I learn php to build sites?
thanks

Answer 17

nothing lasts forever in this World. Even good things come to an end. But dont get discouraged. Were be programming telepathically soon. lol no just joking.