Three Things I Learned About Software WHILE NOT in College

As per Scott's request, here are my three things…

Things I Learned about Software in College

1. I've never been to college. Considering all the completely untrained college graduates I've worked with I don't think most colleges are teaching them much about software.

Things I Learned about Software While Not in College

1. Quality is everything. You may think quality is something you can trade off but you're only trading off something else equally important such as reliability, performance or security.
2. Know your operating system. You can be the most amazing C++/C#/Java/VB/Ruby/VBScript wonder child but if you don't know how your operating system works you're just flying blind.
3. Domain-specific languages are great but... Languages like SQL and XAML are amazing at what they do but computer users generally want applications that tie a bunch of different domains together and make it appear seamless. You need some really strong glue that bonds well with all of these different domains and devices and can also talk efficiently to your operating system and runtime. C++ has always been good at this.

© 2007 Kenny Kerr