On Nov 25, 2019, at 8:06 AM, Jeanne Petrangelo <jeanne@...> wrote:

?

“How do you mentor 20 somethings when they won't READ, even short stuff”

I have a 19yo son going to college for software engineering, and he doesn’t like to read. He prefers videos. It is frustrating. We tried pointing out that vast swaths of information in the world is written down and if he doesn’t learn to ingest information that way, then he’s cutting himself off from that info. Reasoning hadn’t motivated him enough; it’s too abstract. But you have a specific case. Do you get the sense these 20 somethings want to learn, or are they happy enough with the way things are? Maybe starting with goal setting so they understand “why” and what’s in it for them, first?

On Mon, Nov 25, 2019 at 1:03 AM Charles Gallo <Charlie@...> wrote:

Steve (et al)
So here is the real question I have
I've gotten older, and it seems out of touch with a lot of the younger
developers

I was brought in to mentor them on this stuff, refactoring, TDD etc (and
of course get out code, setup CD/CI etc etc - of course all at the same
time ASAP)

How do you mentor 20 somethings when they won't READ, even short stuff

I tried to get them interested in "Brownfield Development" - Or
Feathers, etc - and even when you hand them something as small as a
partial chapter, or a simple write-up, you get blown off that they don't
read (and this is management, as well as the Jr developers)

I've noticed at the last couple of places.? One place - Give them the
basic instructions for GIT/TortoiseGIT, no one can be bothered to read
it, and one culprit (the CEO no less) would cowboy code, have it on his
PC, not in any source control, and yell when you can't get things to
work (the only semi working copy of the web site source was on his
laptop)

I don't understand how to get through to these folks anymore

Trying to get them to understand WHY you TDD - Why you can't get CI/CD
setup on a legacy project in a week (all manual builds off a developers
PC, with no tests run, even though there were tests)



On 2019-11-24 19:49, Steven Smith wrote:
> Autocorrect: yeah->teach
>
>
>> On Nov 24, 2019, at 19:48, Steven Smith via Groups.Io
>> <ssmith.lists=[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> ?I yeah refactoring a lot, and I think practice helps (shocking, I
>> know). I include it in my workshops as well as in free resources on my
>> github (). I also have three
>> different Pluralsight courses on refactoring, including the monster 8
>> hour course Refactoring Fundamentals. Anyone can access these with a
>> trial account and most enterprise shops I talk to have subscriptions
>> for their folks.
>>
>> But to JB’s point, I do think it’s a part of TDD that newer devs lack
>> confidence and probably skill to perform, at least until they gain
>> experience with it.
>>
>> Steve