What they don't teach you in CS departments

What CS departments don't tell you about software development… …And what to do about it!

About Me William Sullivan, BS (CIS) „04  AIG Technology  „04 – present  Software development and architectural  design Blog: statestreetgang.net  Email: williamjsullivan@hotmail.com 

What I meant to say was... DISCLAIMER

Disclaimer Not an indictment of any school  Not an indictment of any instructor  Not an indictment of higher education 

Disclaimer I‟m the genius of me  I just think I‟m the genius of everything else  Biased towards the practical  Sorry, graduate students!  Biased towards Microsoft 

The Illuminati, Area 51 and CS Departments… WHAT THEY DON‟T TELL YOU

Professionalism Learning  A lifetime pursuit  Thinking  Question always  Doing  Be able to produce 

Written communication Internal documentation  Critical for frameworks  External documentation  Affects user-experience  The code itself  Critical for maintenance 

Interpersonal communication Interpersonal skills  Teamwork  Constructive disagreement  Leadership skills  English as a 2nd language  An additional challenge for some 

Patterns and Practices Software Patterns  General solutions to common challenges  Gang of Four (GoF)  Best Practices  Accepted implementation of patterns  Language specific  Address other shortcomings 

Requirements What does the user REALLY need?  Distilled from what they want  The most value from the least code  Practical vs. Perfect  Good now is better than perfect later  Vaporware is the ultimate form of perfection 

Version control Second most used tool  Behind your IDE  Critical for concurrent development  Different tools, but common goals  Edit  Check in  Branching and merging 

Unit and acceptance testing Validating your code  Does it work  Validating your design  Does it do what the user needs it to do  Validating your documentation  Does what it says and says what it does 

Software maintenance Readable code  Easy to read and understand  Debugging  Examining code at runtime  Refactoring  Rewriting code 

Why are you all still sitting here? WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Get experienced Is an education necessary?  Education is the key  Experience is the lock  Get experienced  Internships  Participate in OSS projects 

Electives don‟t suck Use electives wisely  Personal inventory  Identify areas where you are lacking  Fill holes in your experience  Don‟t go for the “easy A”  Personal growth is the key 

Read a book, read a book… Contain the big pictures of CS  The internet is a great microscope  Books are great telescopes  The classics never get deprecated  Read a chapter a week 

Read a blog, read a blog… Big names blog  Interact with big names  Learn directly from the best  Twitter is gaining ground on blogs 

Participate Be active in the community  User groups  Conferences  Blog  Your personal CV  Teach  Yes, even you can teach! 

The end, or… THE BEGINNING

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What they don't teach you in CS departments

by WillSullivan

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