Navigating the Software Industry

Excerpts from a lecture we had from a industry consultant at school:

Programming Paradigms

(Ways to think about and practice programming)

• Imperative (give computer ordered instructions)
• Declarative (tell computer what to do, not how)
• Procedural (break program into procedures)
• Object oriented (mix data and behaviour)
• Functional programming (everything is functions)
• Logic Programming (define facts and inference rules, useful for queries)
• Event Driven programming (events trigger actions)
• Concurrent programming (parallel handling of many tasks)
• Reactive Programming
• Component-based Architecture (Make reusable components and UI trees)
• Declarative User Interface (UI is a function of application state)

Recommendations for Sunnmøre (finest part of Norway)

Various languages, frameworks and technologies relevant for working around Sunnmøre:

• C# (lots of MS-oriented jobs)
• Java
• Python
• JavaScript (it’s unfortunately just inevitable…)
• TypeScript
• SQL
• Excel (no joke)
• React
• Flutter
• Apache Kafka

(No big surprises here)

On a more general note, the specific languages do not really matter so much, as long as you understand the concepts and constructs that underlie programming.

Otherwise grow up and become a senior developer:

• Take responsibility
• Think about the users and the business
• Do what needs to be done, not what you think would be fun
• Be flexible, let the future unfold

“For any change to happen in your life you must be wrong about something” - Mark Manson

(a quote he added about learning by doing)

Summary

• Attitude is more valuable than skill
• Learn paradigms and constructs
• Practice the constructs using tools
• Challenge yourself
• Keep learning and keep growing

The first point will probably become more and more relevant with increased usage of AI. He also mentioned we should try to make a game at some point. This will provide a lot of great experience while being fun at the same time.

I Approve