How to embrace lifelong learning as a developer

Discover why lifelong learning is essential for Python developers and software engineers of all varieties. Learn from the lives of Socrates, Feynman, Buckland, and others. Embrace continuous learning to advance your coding skills and career.

Before we cover why lifelong learning is so critical for software developers, let's start with a few inspiring life lessons from some of history's greatest thinkers.

Neil Postman’s advice to his kids#

In response to a question at one of his brilliant talksNeil Postman - "The Surrender of Culture to Technology". A lecture delivered by Neil Postman on Mar. 11, 1997 in the Arts Center. on the relationship between technology and society, Neil PostmanA twentieth century American scholar, author and educationist who studied the interface between society, technology and education. had to reveal what he advised his three children when the time came for them to pick their majors in college. He told them each that it doesn’t matter what they choose, as long as they choose what they are terribly interested in. Postman knew he had already taught them the more important life skills: reading, writing, and speaking. Postman then went on to say:

“The people who are going to run everything in America, now and in the foreseeable future are those people who can read, write and speak well, and demonstrate a command over language. These are the people who get into Yale, Harvard, and Princeton, not by demonstrating that they have computer skills, but that they can read, write and speak.”

In my opinion, Postman’s advice is even more true in the chaotic world of post-generative AI. Those who are weak in their command over language are most prone to lose their jobs first. Those who have their language intact will be able to put generative AI to excellent use and their advantage, no matter their domain of expertise.

Learning to learn—learnability#

But what Neil Postman only argued as a half-conspiracy, William Zinsser has managed to shape up as a framework, in his book titled, Writing to Learn.

We would imagine that the book is about learning to write, but it is not. It is not a book about how you should write. Rather, it is a book that answers why you should write. If you use writing as a tool to think, you will become a better thinker, writer, and learner.

This is because when you put your pen or pencil to the paper, your half-baked ideas get thrashed out and eventually turn into better arguments for you and the world. In written form, you eventually know the things you know and things you still need to figure out—and learn. It becomes a system, a system for your learning.

Life lessons from three of history's best learners#

Pop culture might want to impress upon us that learning takes place within the bounds of schools, but the best individuals who have helped shape society are almost always those who have been incessant learners. They just kept learning throughout their lives. If I were to pick just three iconic learners, it would be no surprise that all three are teachers—not ordinary teachers who just taught, but the best teachers who were genuinely more interested in learning than teaching.

1) Socrates#

Socrates, the teacher of all teachers, laid his life in the way of truth. He was charged with corrupting the youth, where it is evident that those in power could not stand how he questioned their status quo. He preferred to drink poison when given the choice rather than renouncing his quest for sticking to side with reason and truth. His sacrifice keeps his name and work alive while nobody knows the names of those who took him to trial. His work is the foundation of almost every idea the modern West stands tall on.

2) Richard Feynman#

The famous physicist and university professor Richard FeynmanBy The Nobel Foundation - http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-bio.html, PD-Sweden, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34664654 narrates a fascinating story in his autobiographical book, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! As a kid, he took apart radios and put them together. One day, a peculiar job request came for the young Feynman. When turned on, a guy’s radio made terrible noises, but it got normal after a while. Feynman went to fix his radio, but instead of getting right to it, he thought. He thought systematically about the hypotheses he was going to try. The guy with the radio ran out of patience:

So the guy says, “What are you doing? You come to fix the radio, but you’re only walking back and forth!” I say, “I’m thinking!”

What Feynman thought about reversing the tubes and why, turned out to be true. Later, Feynman writes:

“He got me other jobs, and kept telling everybody what a tremendous genius I was, saying he fixes radios by thinking!”

Feynman grew up to win a Nobel prize for his work in quantum physics, but to the world, he will always be known as the great explainer. There’s a learning technique named after him now. Feynman’s technique suggests that we explain the concept at hand in simpler terms, without jargon, and we keep simplifying the explanation until it cannot be simplified anymore. If we can explain any complicated phenomenon from our domain to someone from another walk of life to the effect that they also understand it, we can claim that we know the phenomenon.

3) Richard Buckland#

Richard Buckland, a brilliant computer science professor at UNSWunsw.flickr, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Australia, hates search engines and wants his students to learn and use their brains instead of running to the internet to find answers.

He is clear that his course isn’t about C but rather about learning the art of programming, only using C as a language. Because he knows that C can go away in the future, his students would not be at any loss; they’ll simply learn the syntax of the new language in town. He stresses the journey of learning and makes his students consciously go through the journey of learning rather than memorizing stuff for exams. He prepares them for life.

The common characteristics of best learners across the eras#

Now, Socrates, Richard Feynman, and Richard Buckland are three distinct characters well separated by time and space, but they share common characteristics, which are the characteristics any lifelong learner would need to acquire if they want to thrive in the time and space they occupy.

• Curiosity and inquisitiveness

• Innovative thinking and open-mindedness

• Commitment to critical thinking and analysis

• Passion for teaching and sharing knowledge

• Embrace of lifelong learning

Is lifelong learning only about getting gainful employment?#

As much as pop culture wants us to believe that the whole purpose of learning, education, and life is to attain transferable skills to secure gainful employment, it’s not!

Randy Pausch and his “last lecture”#

The beloved computer science professor, Randy PauschBy Randy Pausch - moved from en.wikipedia.org, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3924468, appeared in front of a packed audience at Carnegie Mellon University to deliver a lecture. His lecture was a part of the series of talks at CMU titled The Last Lecture. The theme of the whole series was that if the old professor was hypothetically speaking delivering their last lecture, what would they like to share with their fellow faculty members and students. It was Randy’s turn to deliver a talk in September 2007. He was only 46 years old at the time.

July 2008 is when Randy passed away. He knew this while preparing for his famous last lecture. This sense of urgency put so much weight on every word he said. At the surface, the talk was about his childhood dreams, how he never abandoned them, and how the walls of hurdles that came his way were placed there by the universe so that only people who wanted something seriously enough would get through. Randy was one such person. He proved it by demonstrating how he fulfilled his childhood dreams of flying in zero gravity, working for Disneyland, etc.

But toward the end of the talk, he let the audience know that it might seem that the talk was about his childhood dreams, about enabling the dreams of others, and lessons learned along the way. As Randy has said:

“It is not about how to achieve your dreams. It is about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself, and the dreams will come to you!”

Learning to code: a lifelong journey#

In your career journey as a software developer, you must constantly learn in all these different avenues. That’s why it’s so important to have a trusted online learning resource like Educative, which is specifically designed to help you, as developers, learn the skills and advance in your careers. This way, you can keep learning continuously and confidently to be successful.

Take a look at the journey we have curated just for you, designed using some of the best principles of learning: