Programming languages to teach students in high-school and university

Python-like or C-like as the language to introduce programming to students in high school and university? The question is: Do you introduce programming concepts to high-school/university students using languages that handle memory and other things for you or do you start introducing all of these concepts in languages like C that require you to understand all aspects. I will tell you what worked for me. I was introduced to programming in grade 10 using Basic programming language. There was a version called Better Basic and also Quick Basic. Then in grade 11 we learned procedural programming in a programming language called Turing (not Turing machine but a Pascal-like language developed by University of Toronto for teaching purposes). Then a year later, I started getting interested in C and C++. As you can see, I eased into the languages that introduced me to NULL exceptions and memory leaks :)
With this approach I was not overwhelmed and this set up the foundation for a fun journey in the software engineering field. However, everybody is different. What would work for majority?

Almir Mustafic

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Daylight saving time and A Software Engineering state of mind ?

You may be wondering what the Daylight saving time has to do with a software engineering state of mind. When thinking about writing this article, at first I thought to start with the following joke and I am: “ Did you know that the Daylight saving time was started because a software developer coded a function that does smart timezone and configurable calculations and then this developer created a problem to solve to use the algorithm; hence, the Daylight saving time was born. ” This is a joke, but on a more serious note , this brings me to a state of mind in software engineering that make this joke a reality to some degree. How many times did we find ourselves in situations where we learned something new in programming and we looked for ways to apply it at any cost? How many times did we see a cool new feature from a creator of a framework and we decided to use it even though that was not the right solution for the problem or maybe there was no problem to solve in the ...

Leaders/Mentors in my life

I have been blessed in my software engineering career with great leaders. Some of them challenged me in technical skills. Some of them challenged me in my organization and leadership skills. Some of them challenged me in both. And all of them made me a better software engineer, a better senior engineer, a better solutions architect, a better teammate, and a better leader. If you are a student, find yourself a mentor. If you are a junior software engineer, find yourself a mentor. If you are an experienced software engineer, find yourself a mentor. Remember, you write your own definition of success and you are your own critic. That may mean that you TRY to perfect every stage of your career, or that may mean that you skip some stages in your career. Remember, you are in control. That’s all I wanted to say today :) Keep geeking out. Almir

OWNING your sandbox

OWNING your sandbox. As software engineers we all like to work on latest technology and coding new applications. People generally don’t like spending a lot of time maintaining the code. However, in the world of microservices the owners of each microservice are very well known and defined unlike in the world of monolithic applications. That means that you own it in the true sense. You own the code. You own the QA environment. You own the Stage environment. You own the production environment and all the errors that come along with it :) On positive note, you have a lot to be proud of and you can turn it into opportunities :) You own something that is contributing your company’s customers and what you do responsibly affects the lives of many people in a positive way. Almir Mustafic

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