Learning From My Apprentice

My company, Cyrus Innovation, has started an Apprenticeship program. This program involves bringing on people who are brand new to programming and pair them with a Senior developer to train them in good practices. About a month ago I ‘acquired’ an Apprentice: Paige.

I’ve never done this sort of thing before and I quickly came to realize that the relationship wasn’t just Master & Apprentice but really Apprentice-Master & Apprentice. I am not only learning as I go what it means to have an Apprentice but also learning from my Apprentice.

Even more than normally during pair-programming I feel I need to explain myself. Not only explaining how to do something in the programming language, but how to do it with our tools, and how we’ll do something in the context of our team. Add to that explaining the why of it all as well. This exercise helps me remember and reconsider why I do things the way I do, why they are important.

This also brings to light good practices which I have chosen not to do in this current situation. Perhaps there are reasons, perhaps those reasons are good, sometimes they are not. By having to explain the trade-offs and reconsider the bad reasons I am learning why I make these decisions.

Also by embodying some good behaviors she is teaching me some tricks about how to learn. She is a careful attentive listener, always asking questions to get clarification. She also tests her knowledge by sharing what she does know (even if not sure) which either adds to the collective knowledge or is corrected.

So I hope she is learning something by pair-programming with me; but I know I’m learning something from her.

Originally published at code-and-cocktails.herokuapp.com on May 24, 2016.