Propaedeutic might be fancy word, but I have found it to be extremely useful. Propaedeutic comes from the ancient greek ‘propaideusis’ translated as “preparatory education”. I take it as the knowledge to be obtained before you learn a discipline, before you play football you need to learn how to run, how to kick a ball, game rules come later. Today, it was about propaedeutics.
The apprenticeship is a unique opportunity to learn, dwell deeper in the craft of software developing, but before rushing into topics, I found it was relevant to take a step back, to analize the landscape, and from that base start moving forward.
I decided that my first task as an apprentice would be to actually reflect on what an apprentice should do. The 'what' is clear: to learn, but the 'how' and 'why' are a bit more evasive. Luckily I found a book that might help with that.
Going through the HolidayCheck Apprenticeship Wiki, I came across a book called ‘Apprenticeship Patterns’. The book defines patterns as a ‘named description of a recurring solution to a problem in a given context’, and in that light it offers you several patterns. Bare in mind that this are not Design Patterns for Software, this are Design Patterns to make the best of an apprenticeship.
Sounds confusing? I know, let me (try to) clarify. So let’s break down the definition “named description of a recurring solution”, in the book context is a call for action, like “Expose your ignorance”. So we know that "Expose your ignorance" is a solution, but to what problem? One that affects me quite directly as a beginner, being that there is a vast amount of things I don’t know about. Considering that issue, the proposed pattern is to be vocal about your knowledge shortcomes instead of trying to hide them under the rug, is a good practice that will facilitate learning much more that quietness.
When you think about it, it makes sense to think of these as patterns, because they are common solutions to common problems. The book does just that it shows you common solutions (what an apprentice ought to do) and later explains to you the problem that that solution is handling.
Just like that, the book goes through other patterns, such as keeping a "White Belt" mentality, learning "Concrete Skills" and “Emptying Your Cup”. I read through a bunch of them and plan to continue to do so in order to plan my apprenticeship in the best way possible, the idea is to be able to take advantage of this instance very early in the process.
So why propaedeutic? Because today it was about taking one step back and looking the whole experience of the apprenticeship and the meaning of it from a distance. Today it wasn't about use cases for recursion, closures, or what the hell 'this' is in any given moment, first I’m learning how to learn better.