Developers Should Learn Why, Not Just Memorize What
Knowing what to do with the Knowledge is Wisdom
| By Tad Anderson |
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| June 11, 2011 06:00 AM EDT | Reads: | 1,630 |
I have gotten a few emails asking why I read so many books. Simply put, I read books to learn about all the things the people who are much smarter than me recommend I do.
The one thing I learned in college is that if I wanted an A, I needed to work for it. I was not naturally smart like some of my classmates were. I am also horrible at memorization, so I had to learn why something was done and not just the formula to accomplish the task at hand.
I also learned that the more I learned the less I knew. Programming and architecture require a lot of knowledge, much more than my little brain can hold. So I read and what keep is the why something is done the way it is done. I also do my best to remember a reference to the location of what I read (which book I read it in).
This has burned me when memorization was a preferred skill over experience. I was in an interview once that had gone on for a pretty long time. Nothing technical was asked for hours. Then one of the interviewers came in and started asking very simple yet broad technical questions. The random memorization type. You know, define an assembly, list the new features in .NET 4.0, how many toes does a monkey have. Those type of questions.
My gears didn't switch, instead they locked. I could not recall the lists of things they wanted me to recall. I could actually remember the page number and the page layout the answer to one of the questions was on, but could not remember the content of the page.
It worked out for the best, the company I was interviewing with has seemed to have lost its direction. It also seemed they were interested in a road warrior, which I am no longer willing to be.
