A Need For Continuous Learning

Continuous learning, or lifelong learning, is far from a new concept for most engineers. Given how fast the software engineering field moves everyday, we can only keep up by learning (at our own comfortable pace). Of course, it is not ideal to restrict learning to only technical domains. Any continuous learning plan should allow you to learn new knowledge that may be indirectly useful in life.

Having graduated from NTU in December 2013, I am currently working at Carousell as their Lead Engineer where I focus primarily on the backend and system infrastructure. Moving from a structured studying curriculum to a working environment which is largely unstructured, I tried several techniques to introduce opportunities for learning throughout the day, as opposed to only learning during a dedicated time period.

Here are a collection of methods and news sources that I have personally tried and stuck with after a few months. I would love to know your opinion and comments on them on Twitter.

Social Media and News

Social media can often be a huge time sink. You spend time posting status updates, reading and replying to your best friend’s shared posts and media, participating in viral loops… etc. From another perspective, the huge inflow of information actually allows one to learn and discuss about new ideas more rapidly than reading them in the wild. In contrast with Facebook, Twitter actually makes it easier for you to filter and read interesting or thought-provoking updates from other engineers.

• Twitter lists is an awesome tool to curate your own set of technical newsfeed from specific users on Twitter that is separate from your own timeline (which may contain, say pet photos from your friends). Having a list makes it easy to consume these bite size updates while commuting on the bus or train. Whenever I chance upon tidbits of new tools or thoughts by certain users that sound interesting, I can favourite the tweet which would be akin to bookmarking for me to research more in-depth at a more convenient time.
• Without any newsfeed curation tool, Facebook Groups is perhaps the only way to learn of new tools on Facebook itself. Two key factors are at play here: the quality of the group’s posting and the type of discussion that generates from these posts. In general, it is important to join multiple groups covering different topics to avoid the Echo Chamber effect. Some of the groups that is more active in Singapore are HackerspaceSG and Front End Developers Singapore.

Twitter and Facebook groups actually complement each other for learning - Twitter for smaller updates and Facebook for more in-depth discussion.

My source of technical news in the post Slashdot era is limited to:

• Hacker News and Reddit’s /r/programming: Major technical news topics often pop up on these two sites first. Readers of these sites, including myself, generally agree that the comments section is the most valuable. However, being on the internet means that some of the comments can be unhelpful or plain snobbish.
• LWN.net covers Linux information from the source (literally). I do not claim to understand every topic covered, but the site is a great treasure trove of Linux news and information I can learn from.

Podcasts

Apart from reading, commute time is great for both listening and watching podcasts. On my HTC One, I use AntennaPod to subscribe and download podcasts. Some of the podcasts I listen and watch include:

• The Changelog: Changelog is an awesome podcast which focuses on Open Source and the people behind them. Guests who uses or develops open source libraries used mostly in production settings are invited to share their background, experience and opinion on topics such as managing open source projects, etc.
• BBC Globalnews: No introduction needed for BBC news. It is a simple way to catch up on global news while on the go.
• The Linux Action Show: Another personal favourite of mine. As the name of the podcast suggests, it is a Linux focused podcast which covers a myriad of topics ranging from Distro reviews to interviews with people behind the scenes.

MOOCs

Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is best at providing a semi-structured learning environment for different types of topics. I personally do not participate in any of the courses (tests and exams) but instead view the lecture videos for learning on the go. If you have the time and capacity to do so, taking the tests and exams would definitely grant you a better understanding of the subject matter. However, the beauty of MOOCs is such that with the materials provided, one can customize and adapt learning of new topics according to his or her pace. There are tools which allows you to easily download lecture videos and their corresponding lecture materials.

Some of the courses I am preparing to take soon are:

• Analysis of Algorithms: This courses provides an “introduction to analytic combinatorics in the context of applications in the analysis of algorithms”. What stands out for this course is that it goes beyond our O / Omega notation style of algorithm analysis by introducing a calculus that lets us precisely understand and compare the performance of algorithms.
• Classics of Chinese Humanities: Guided Readings: I have been waiting for this course to launch for quite a while! Despite having a bilingual curriculum in our pre-tertiary education, there is almost no chance for one to learn topics taught in our second language in the University (apart from taking language-based degree courses and electives). It should be refreshing to read these classics and to take a course in Mandarin.

Team / Company Sharing Sessions

Learning is crucial at the workplace too! This is why we have started sharing sessions at Carousell to enable us to learn from each other. We do our best to make the session fun and interesting so that everyone walks away with a better understanding of a new topic.

Topics that we have covered so far include a gentle introduction to our infrastructure as well as an analysis of support emails that we get from our users. After our sharing session on support email analysis, we were able identify and build new features for our internal support tools to help out community and user support team in their daily work.

Going Forward

I am pretty excited over how my current continuous learning plans will work out in the long run. MOOCs give me the structured classroom feel for discipline and podcasts + news makes commute much more bearable as they are now learning sessions.

If you have your own ideas of how you are all setup for learning, I would be happy to hear them.

“Learning never stops. It just takes a different form.”

Photo

My North Face backpack which I used during my undergraduate days. It is now in the hands of my brother who can put better use to it for his Secondary School studies.