Learning Software Skills fast: what worked for us best in the last 15 years

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NO SILVER BULLET

Three Dots Labs

10 episodes

4 days ago

Based on nearly 20 years of working together on various projects, we discuss when it makes sense to move fast rather than aim for perfect code, and how to avoid technical debt that can kill your project. We focus on making mindful engineering decisions instead of blindly following rules like “always do X” or “never do Y”. Different situations need different approaches to code quality.

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Learning Software Skills fast: what worked for us best in the last 15 years

NO SILVER BULLET

1 hour 26 minutes 47 seconds

6 months ago

Learning Software Skills fast: what worked for us best in the last 15 years

In this episode, we discuss how to learn effectively as a software engineer. Why some people seem to learn faster than others? What are some practical ways to speed up your learning? Instead of promising magical shortcuts to becoming a principal engineer in months, we focus on a more balanced approach that helps you build skills by mixing theory with practice.

Quick takeaways

Focus on applying what you learn - reading books or watching videos isn’t enough without practice
Build real projects that challenge you - trivial examples don’t expose you to the hidden complexities you’ll face in actual work
Expect and embrace frustration - feeling stuck often means you’re learning something valuable
Learn timeless concepts over framework-specific details - aim for universal software skills like modularization
Mix theory with practice in small chunks - read a bit and code a bit, rather than consuming large amounts of content at once

Notes

We mentioned our learning platform
Domain-Driven Design was referenced throughout - check “Implementing Domain-Driven Design” by Vaughn Vernon
Watermill - our open-source library mentioned as an example of a project that taught us while helping others: github.com/ThreeDotsLabs/watermill
Event-Driven Architecture traces back to 1950s, but was formalized about 20 years ago
The Repository pattern blog post

Full episode notes and transcript: http://threedots.tech/episode/learning-software-skills-fast/