[KPUG] Checking-in on progress

[Gryphon Shafer]

Greetings Anthony,

Self-motivation is hyper-critical for any software engineering job, but 
even more so for jobs like those at Golden Guru where the work is done 
remotely on your own schedule. Each day, it's important to evaluate the 
long-term costs versus benefits of staying focused on the tasks at hand 
versus being distracted by other pursuits. Playing Borderlands 2 may be 
a lot of fun in the short-term, but it's helpful to evaluate whether 
spending time there has better long-term value than investing in 
preparing for a financially prosperous career.

There are times as a software engineer when there are specific tasks 
laid out in a sequence, like building the virtual machine. There are 
other times when you have a specific problem that's necessary to solve, 
and you'll have to then pour over a great many details, derive theories, 
test those theories, and adjust tactics based on the results. And there 
are still other times when you'll be tasked with learning a new 
technology or system or methodology. In these cases, you'll be required 
to read through lengthy texts, since most complicated things require a 
great deal of text to describe. The value of the work we do, and 
therefore the size of our paychecks, is directly proportional to the 
complexity of the work.

Consequently, it's valuable to develop a strong work ethic and be eager 
to jump into tasks such as reading a book to learn a new programming 
language. In the case of Learning Perl, however, it's more than just 
reading. There are exercises at the end of each chapter that are 
designed to help the learner use the concepts presented in the chapter. 
These exercises then comprise a specific set of tasks to complete.

It's also important to remember that the autodidact concept we're 
operating under is one where the learner is self-directed. This is 
critical for two reasons: First, when working in a software engineering 
job with Golden Guru, you'll have to be self-directed the vast majority 
of the time. Second, I don't have time to provide much more than 
pointers to the next major learning steps. It's up to the learner to 
break apart those steps into smaller tasks and to make progress through 
them. Since my goal is to hire folks who are able to do these sorts of 
things, that's why from time to time there will be pointers to "read 
this book".

Gryphon


On 9/25/2012 9:27 AM, anthony miller wrote:
> I got enough done last week to be able to continue on to more 
> instructions, but less done then I would have liked. This last week I 
> ran into a little bit of motivation issues with getting work done for 
> two reasons. The first is that I don't do as well at staying motivated 
> when it feels like my assignment is basically just "read this book". I 
> do better when it feels like the first week, that is "you have this 
> task to complete, here are some resources to do that." The other 
> reason is Borderlands 2 came out. Almost every one of my friends is 
> playing it constantly every day right now. Though now that the first 
> week is out of the way people are starting to play it less often so 
> that wont be as much of an issue. So I guess all this is me saying 
> please give me a task to do so that I can work to complete it.
>
> On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 8:28 AM, Elizabeth Rosenzweig 
> <errosenzweig at gmail.com <mailto:errosenzweig at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     The cat and I both got sick last week, so I am behind.
>
>     I went through the vi stuff and feel like I'm getting the hang of
>     it but haven't started the Perl stuff yet.  But I was anticipating
>     working extra this week to make up for last week, so bring on the
>     next stuff whenever you have it ready.
>
>
>     On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Griffin Kelton
>     <griffin.kelton at gmail.com <mailto:griffin.kelton at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         Gryphon,
>
>         I'm still working through some of the Perl exercises, but I'm
>         not running into any problems. I'm ready for the next set of
>         things whenever you are.
>
>         Griffin Kelton
>         (919)306.1135 <tel:%28919%29306.1135>
>         www.griffinkelton.com <http://www.griffinkelton.com>
>
>         Please consider the environment before printing this email.
>
>
>
>         On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 11:16 AM, Gryphon Shafer
>         <gryphon at goldenguru.com <mailto:gryphon at goldenguru.com>> wrote:
>
>             Greetings all,
>
>             Just checking-in on progress, seeing how you all are
>             doing. I didn't see much in the way of questions last week
>             about vi or the "Learning Perl" book exercises, so I
>             wanted to ask if folks are running through these
>             swimmingly or if you're encountering any road blocks along
>             the way.
>
>             I figure the Learning Perl exercises will take a few days
>             to finish, maybe a total of a couple weeks. Learning vi
>             will take a lifetime, but you should have a basic working
>             ability with it by now. How are things going? Questions
>             about anything, or are folks waiting on me for the next
>             set of things?
>
>             Gryphon
>
>
>
>
>

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