Apprentice - Journeyman - Master!

I had an interesting chat with my friend Andrew the other day about trades. You know, the professions whereby a craftsman makes a product or performs a service that involves skilled labour and knowledge!

I was talking about a book that I read that talked about software development as more of a craft than an engineering discipline. You see, in University, "Software Engineering" has been pitched as a very scientific dream, where software should be developed using formal processes, strict documentation, and the like. The book spoke of this mentality as being too rigid and restrictive. I think that it is the dream of some to have computers eventually program themselves, or at some point, for computer programmers to be taken out of the loop and replaced by some sort of vending machine able to produce computer programs.

Well, the book went on to describe how a process more similar to that of blacksmiths might be more appropriate for Computer Science. The idea is that to learn how to program, you must have skill and experience doing it. That skill can only be learned from your own experiences of creating and changing projects that you work on. As you encounter problems, you look to a mentor to guide you through the difficult parts, and you learn as you go. One would progress through a heirarchy of classifications such as the Apprentice to the Journeyman, etc. The idea is that the Apprentice learns from the Journeyman, and that the Journeyman in turn learns from the master. It is a similar structure to that of the martial arts, where it is also the similar task of someone trying to learn a skill.

Anyway, I was talking to Andrew about his job and my job, and about the people who we work with. I realized that the problems and solutions, the pain and the gain, of his job was the most similar to my job than the jobs of any of my other friends! He's an electrician! Not an engineer... So, I've really started to think about how my career should progress around this sort of model, and it may take my career in a new direction soon. I'm not sure. We'll see how good I am at being an electrician! ;)