Apprenticeship Pattern

Your first language

• build a toy application, make it an open source project
• use test-driven development techniques to get short feedback loops
• best situation is to work regularly with a expert on a project using your language, which help you learn the spirit of the language (Find Mentor Pattern)
• join a community, share code, express yourself idiomatically
• read books such as Effective Java, Effective C++
• The better you know your first language, the easier it will be to learn your next language.
• A healthy career should introduce you to the diverse language landscape of software development. Each language provides an opportunity to solve problems using different paradigms.
• Apprentices comfortable with an object-oriented language should explore a functional programming language. Apprentices comfortable with server-side programming should explore user interface design.

The white belt