How to apply software development learning

Question

Hi all,

Apologies if the question seems a little vague, ill see if i can clarify.

Im approaching the end of my CS course at university and im beginning to look at jobs, however im running into a problem that i suspect applies to a lot near graduates. Over the past 3 years ive learnt how to do lots of very clever things; the principles of OO programming, project management, systems analysis etc, but if i went into a job tomorrow tomorrow, and was told "write an application that does x" i wouldnt know where to begin.

I feel like ive got a lot of very useful skills and knowledge but no idea how to pull it all together. What i want to know is how did everyone go about overcoming this hurdle, are there any particular routes to take? any career paths that help with this problem in particular, or is it simply experience?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated and im sure would be of assistance to anyone else in my position that comes across this thread.

Answer 1

I would recommend reading Code complete, and then writing some applications to apply the principles. You could write any application you choose, you could search for coding Katas for some ideas. You learn by coding, and you will get better with time and experience, there is no quick fix. In software development whether you have been doing it for 5 months or 20 years you need to keep learning and keeping up with the changes. Thats just part of the fun anyway. :).Good luck.

Answer 2

Practice. Build something.

At first, You'll have to focus, because there are just too many things that you can learn.

Above and read these about SOLID and refactoring. It should give you an upper hand on letting the pieces flow in there, instead of being paralyzed by top down design thoughts.