Episode 13: Aggressive Learning

Guest: Ted Neward Host: Daniel Steinberg Anyone who develops software for a living, or who works for an organization that does, knows the challenge of keeping up with changes in technology. Tools change. Methodologies change. Frameworks change. Languages change. For us, change is a central fact of life. Even when a software developer is not being driven by change, she faces a daunting task. The world of computer science is big, as is the world of software development. No matter how much we know, there is more to know. So you've mastered OOP -- what about functional programming or logic programming? You are a Java or Smalltalk guru, but what about Scheme or Erlang? The more tools we have in our toolbox, the better prepared we are for our next task. The more kinds of things we know, the better we can use use the tools in our toolbox. Ted Neward is a software developer facing these challenges head-on. He has been aggressively learning several new languages of late, expanding his repertoire. Later this month, he'll be at ooPSLA, too. Anyone who has ever attended ooPSLA knows that it is the best conference around for adding tools to your toolbox and new ideas to your thinking. This year is no exception. Neward himself is contributing to the mix od new ideas at ooPSLA with two tutorials: one with Erik Meijer on LINQ, and one with Martin Odersky and Gilles Dubochet on Scala. Each of these tutorials teaches new tools, as well as new ways of thinking. Listen to this podcast to hear Daniel Steinberg of DimSum Thinking talk with Neward about aggressively learning new ideas, about adding tools to your tool box, and about why he likes Scala so much.