Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Just In Time Learning

It has been said that there are only seven basic plots from which all stories derive. Textbooks define seven simple machines on which all mechanical devices depend. These numbers are in dispute, of course, just as the number of fundamental particles has grown from the neutron, electron, and proton that you may have been taught in grade school. When I sat around the campfire with the tribe as a child, it was pretty much just Earth, Air, Fire and Water.

You may be surprised to find that in 1936 mathematician Alan Turing proved that all computing devices can be defined in terms of a few simple operations which he defined to be a Universal Turing Machine. For sure, the UTM is an abstract concept; programming in assembler (any assembler) would be a tremendous step up. But the basic idea is that all computing is at its heart built on a foundation of just a few very simple operations, which are combined macro-like to define more complex operations, which are in turn combined to define yet more complex operations, pretty much ad infinitum. It's macros all the way up until you finally arrive at languages like Ruby, Prolog, and Haskell.

Barry Karafin, computer scientist, professor, one-time CEO, and former head of Bell Laboratories, once said: "The half-life of any high technology is around five years". That's not true for all technologies, of course. As much as we hate to admit it, FORTRAN and COBOL have actually done pretty well for themselves and are still in use today. C has done remarkably better, serving as a portable assembler language in most of its applications. The jury is still out on C++ and Java, although I have more faith in the latter than in the former. It's not clear when or even if the Internet Protocol will be ever be replaced, but probably not in my lifetime.

While it may be fun to learn the latest hot new language (or framework, or any other technology), and hence feel hip for at least a brief while, to me that hot new language just doesn't really feel all that new. It seems more like one of those movies that try to recapture the feeling of a television show from thirty or so years ago, and frequently doing a terrible job of it. Even if a new technology is successful, you usually get the feeling that it won't be successful for all that long before it's replaced by the next big thing. The success of C, Java, and TCP/IP is that they've stuck around long enough to make becoming an expert in them worth your time.

I don't know how many basic algorithms or design patterns there are, but it's a lot more than seven. But I'm pretty sure it's not infinite either. And I know that those algorithms and patterns aren't language-specific. Sure, a pattern might be easier to implement in one language than in another, speaking as someone that has done object-oriented design by implementing the C++ virtual table in assembler. But as long as your language is Turing-equivalent, I'm positive you can implement any algorithm or design pattern in it.

That's why I find it a lot more satisfying to learn algorithms, design patterns, and basic techniques, than I do to learn a new programming language. And that's why for many high technologies, I practice Just In Time Learning. I deliberately delay in learning most new technologies until it becomes apparent that I'm actually going to need to know it. Then I ramp up quickly.

For sure, there are lots of things I've learn just for the sheer joy of it. Digital Aggregates has an Asterisk server because I got interested in the idea of an open source PBX. I have a Nokia N800 on my desk because I'm intrigued with the idea of an wireless internet appliance. I installed the CVM on it because I'm interested in using embedded Java in such devices. But I'm very careful where I spend my time in learning new things. This is partly because I am old and don't have much time left (see One Hundred Books), and partly because the value equation inside my head tells me it's just not worth the time I do have when compared to other things I could be spending my time learning. I prefer to learn high-leverage stuff.

Does this mean that I am arguing against the life-long learning that most career advisers say is absolutely necessary? Just the opposite. To practice JITL, you have to be really good at coming up to speed quickly. To do that, you must learn how to learn. And the only way to do that is by practicing learning new things. But you have to be picky about where you spend your time, because even though you are probably a lot younger than me, it is likely that your time is limited as well. (Whether the time of your children is similarly limited is a discussion we'll leave to the Singularity folks.)

Does it mean that I refuse to learn niche technologies that I need to do my current project? No, indeed. But it does mean that learning those niche technologies is made easier by that fact that I can see in them patterns and techniques in common with stuff I already know.

Fortunately, my career has been one big rummage sale of projects whose learning requirements were all over the map, ranging from writing cryptic assembler code for resource constrained digital signal processing chips to writing Java code for business process automation. Yet the same design patterns keep showing up, time and time again, regardless of the project or the language in which we implemented it. And in those rare moments in which I thought to myself "Hey... I've never see this technique before!", I had the wonderful feeling that I was adding yet another useful tool to my toolbox.

The older I get, the more interested I become in some of the really hard problems, like process issues (people are always more challenging to deal with than technology), or in the big picture areas like finance and economics. Some of the perhaps more esoteric stuff on my list to learn include rate monotonic analysis, game theory, and queueing theory. These aren't technologies, but techniques that can be applied to many areas, and for the distant foreseeable future. Many companies require their employees to take so many days of training per year, then offer the most introductory of classes in technologies that are likely to have disappeared in just a couple of years. Unless they are teaching a technology that is going to be imminently used by the employee, their training dollars would be better spent in teaching more fundamental skills and more broadly applicable tools.

I'd better get a move on. Time is short.

5 comments:

Demian L. Neidetcher said...

I totally agree with you. When I'm interviewing someone I try to key in on how likely I think they can learn as opposed to what low level skills they have.

When my day job doesn't afford me enough time to exercise my learning muscles I usually learn new stuff after hours. This is just as much for staying good at learning as it is for picking up the actual skill. The skill (at a low level) has a short life in my brain anyways.

I wrote about my own approach to learning. I'd be curious what steps others go through. I imagine they're similar.

Chip Overclock said...

I'm amused by companies who tell their employees that they have to spend so many days a year in training. If they hired the right people, their employees would be learning new stuff all the time no matter what the company policy said, even often in spite of it.

There's that old saying "Dress for your next job." I say: "Learn for your next job."

jlorenzen said...

I also agree with this approach to learning. In fact my boss always tells me to learn patterns over languages, because patterns can be applied to all languages, just not java. Unfortunately, or luckily, I don't carry the same amount of experience you do (I am only 29), so I need a little coaching.
Do you have suggestions on the best ways to learn new patterns, high level concepts, or algorithms as you suggest? I have attempted to read the Gang of Four Design Patterns book but apparently I must be one of those pretend geeks who just didn't get it. I have also tried reading other Design Patter books, like Head Firsts, but just get impatient if I am actually not practicing the patters.

Any suggestions you have would greatly help my career. Thanks.

Chip Overclock said...

I have good news and bad news, and it's all the same news. 2/3rds of the work in software development is changing existing code ("maintenance"). So if you are a working developer, whether you like it or not, you are likely to be spending a good deal of your time changing code, and it probably be code that you didn't write. That's the bad news. The good news is this is a great way to learn patterns, and anti-patterns. For every "hey, I'm going to use that in the future!" moment, you will also have a "wow, what could they have been thinking?" moment.

I agree that just reading patterns isn't enough. You have to apply them. But almost as good is to see them being applied, or see where they should have been applied. As much as developers hate doing maintenance on code, particularly code they didn't write, it's a great learning experience (and like most learning experiences, occasionally painful).

This is also why I don't believe in architects that don't code. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. And those who can't teach frequently become architects. It's way too easy to lose touch with how things really work. It's a form of "drinking the KoolAid" or "believing your own press releases".

BTW, don't apologize for your age. Being the Old Guy is just my thing. It's like being the gunnery sargent who says "Just tell me where to shoot." At 29, you're in the senior portion of your career, and I'll quite likely end up working for you (which is a-okay by me).

Whether you realize it or not, once you reach 40 there is someone in your HR department that is thinking "If only we could get him to quit before he hits the retirement threshold, we could save a lot of money." Not that I'd accuse anyone of age descrimination, but we would be foolish not to recognize the market pressure.

Thanks for the comments! I've read your articles on JBI and learned a lot. I only wish you'd written them two years ago!

jlorenzen said...

Thanks for the reply. Good advice. I especially enjoyed your comments about an architect. My brain is still laughing. We have had difficulty finding decent architects in the middle of Missouri (Joplin), so your words speak to me.

I appreciate your comments about my JBI blogs. I originally found your blog when I was searching on SIP BC, which we have now created and my company has open sourced: https://sip-bc.dev.java.net/.

Have a good vacation.