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Here's the cruel harsh fact that you need to know: You are not going to "keep up". Years ago, you might have been able to remember every parameter to your favo

Here's the cruel harsh fact that you need to know: You are not going to "keep up". Years ago, you might have been able to remember every parameter to your favourite 20 shell or windows commands. Probably even the difference between the differing version of that operating system. However, if you're anything like me, one of your browser pages is permanently on stackoverflow or j2se docs or pydocs etc etc, as I just can't remember the fluff (heh). But here's the good news. You don't have to keep up. You don't need to know the 200+ different ways of sorting a list. You just need to know that different ways exist. Then .. JFGI ! You don't need to know what version of java or python feature xyz was added or deprecated... JFGI ! My answer to any interview that has the question "what is the output of the following program?" is always "Well let's ask the computer - that's far better at this kind of thing than me and it will take a lot less time!". I remember someone asking me about self-modifying C-code and what the output would be. I said "one dead programmer - because if I ever met someone who wrote code like that I would shoot them dead for leaving such a mess". Don't learn the fluff, the parameters, the options, the function names, the versions. Learn how to find them.

deleted 15y ago
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michaelcampbell 15y ago
Yeah, I'm fine with all that and I appreciate your input. But I'm looking to at least keep up with trends, best practices, what sorts of things I should at least have a passing knowledge of. For some concrete info, I'm a java developer in an "enterprisey" shop, and I do a lot of unit testing. Two things I was grilled on and didn't really have first-hand knowledge of were patterns in the EAI Patterns book, or anyting out of the xUnit patterns book. Now it could be argued that this interviewer was a patterns freak, but regardless, I should have at least known what the formalisms were called, etc. So, I've ordered those 2 books to get some handle on those. And, having looked at the books, I realized I DID know a lot of what he was talking about, I just didn't know the names or that they'd even been given names, as such. So I've come to realize that I don't really have (for example) 10 years of experience with Java; I have 3-4 years experience repeated 2-3 times. And I want to alleviate that. So given that, where can I be exposed to "new stuff", either from reading or conferences or something else? I'm clearly not getting it at my job, so am looking to not have my personal line drawn in the sand be "2004", if that makes sense.
khafra 15y ago
That's a good strategy for as long as you know what you don't know. The OP said he's worried that he's getting to the point where he doesn't know what he doesn't know.
- ragmondo 15y ago
  Aha. Ok. In that case, my advice would be "pick an industry leader (ie facebook, google, apple etc), research as to what publicly available technologies they use, learn those as the rest of the tech world will follow".

deleted 15y ago

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michaelcampbell 15y ago

Yeah, I'm fine with all that and I appreciate your input. But I'm looking to at least keep up with trends, best practices, what sorts of things I should at least have a passing knowledge of. For some concrete info, I'm a java developer in an "enterprisey" shop, and I do a lot of unit testing. Two things I was grilled on and didn't really have first-hand knowledge of were patterns in the EAI Patterns book, or anyting out of the xUnit patterns book. Now it could be argued that this interviewer was a patterns freak, but regardless, I should have at least known what the formalisms were called, etc. So, I've ordered those 2 books to get some handle on those. And, having looked at the books, I realized I DID know a lot of what he was talking about, I just didn't know the names or that they'd even been given names, as such. So I've come to realize that I don't really have (for example) 10 years of experience with Java; I have 3-4 years experience repeated 2-3 times. And I want to alleviate that. So given that, where can I be exposed to "new stuff", either from reading or conferences or something else? I'm clearly not getting it at my job, so am looking to not have my personal line drawn in the sand be "2004", if that makes sense.

khafra 15y ago

That's a good strategy for as long as you know what you don't know. The OP said he's worried that he's getting to the point where he doesn't know what he doesn't know.

ragmondo 15y ago
Aha. Ok. In that case, my advice would be "pick an industry leader (ie facebook, google, apple etc), research as to what publicly available technologies they use, learn those as the rest of the tech world will follow".