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views:

335

answers:

12

Most of us know the quote "The average software developer reads less than one professional book per year..." from Peopleware

I am curious to know how (or if) it has changed since then - it's nice to know the trends in our 'profession'... and this seems to be a nice focus group to get some relevant answers from.

So I'm looking here for one-liner responses, that's be voted up if you truly practice to learn and be good at your job. Keep the answers as distinct as possible - So Read dead-tree books would be a diff response than Read blog posts

So yes it's a survey - and comm wiki and maybe close-practice - let the comm decide. There seems to be a similar question #43637 - but it's too verbose and seems to have died off. Though it does have a bunch of things that I'll use to seed the poll here

Update: To clarify what Jon posted as a comment, I'm not looking for trends from people who just happen to program (for whatever reasons) rather from people who love programming and wouldn't trade it for any other profession (or maybe aren't as good at pretty much anything else :)

+8  A: 

Read dead-tree / printed on paper books

Gishu
+2  A: 

Code-Along / Practice / Apply what you've learnt or read

Gishu
+5  A: 

Just-in-Time learning : Learn the simplest thing that'd get you across your latest hurdle. e.g. Post it on SO, use the solution and move on.

Gishu
I use this except I wouldn't characterize it as the example of always being "I ask someone else" kind of learning. 90% of the time I learn something "as needed" by looking it up. It's the 10% case that I am stumped and post a question.
AaronLS
+3  A: 

Read internet articles, examine examples, and prototype projects with various technologies.

AaronLS
+3  A: 

Google. a.k.a. Search for it online

Matthew Iselin
Matthew, can you rollback my edit but include the text. I don't want my profile pic showing up for your post. And also to remind me that I didn't think of Google although my competence would be substantially reduced without it :)
Gishu
+5  A: 

Trial and error practice.

frgtn
Sad, but true!
Treb
+2  A: 

Read Stack Overflow AND the links posted from Stack Overflow answers.

Elijah
+7  A: 

Read stuff on the internet mostly (APIs, blog posts, articles, sites like SO), even my books are PDFs and I search them with Yep rather than read cover to cover.

Delameko
+3  A: 

Blogs, mostly first-hand from people who make the tech (VC++ team, BCL team, Eric Lippert, Sam Ng, Don Syme, Andrew Kennedy, Herb Sutter, Raymond Chen, Michael Kaplan - to name some of the best). For C++ specifically I also read all of the working group papers as they are published.

Pavel Minaev
+1 "If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." - Isaac Newton/ Bertrand of Chartres
Gishu
+2  A: 

Code review. Actively seeking constructive criticism.

OMG Ponies
interesting.. although I've never thought of it in that light... must happen subconsciously.
Gishu
+2  A: 

Join a mailing-list Or user-group : find like-minded people.

Gishu
A: 

Read blogs about extremely stretching your favourite language and the design of that favourite language and framework.


In my case C# extension methods and dotNet's LinQ.

Dykam