Self-studying

Even before I graduated in college, I know there are a lot of things I do not know in the IT field. The university would not be able to teach me them so I decided to study them on my own.

I started to self-study Java, the open-source, cross-platform language. It was the programming language I opted to use in my thesis. Still, I only managed to study stuff about J2SE (Java Platform Standard Edition). There are still 2 editions, the J2EE (Enterprise Edition) and J2ME (Mobile Edition). I had insufficient time to study them because of time constraints. I planned to study them after graduation.

When I graduated and got a work, I had my Java Boot Camp training where I heard more about Java. It refreshed my mind about Java. It also made me realized the truth about Object-oriented designing and programming and Agile practices. I also learned best practices in using Java, Version Control System, Trac, Design Patterns, Unit Testing, TDD (Test Driven Development) and J2EE stuff like JSPs (Java Server Pages) and Servlets.

However, instead of feeling happy that I learned more in a short time, I realized there are more things I need to study about and these things didn't even exist in my vocabulary until now. Most of these are Java frameworks like Struts, the Spring Framework, Hibernate and many more. Other things are Groovy and Grails, Scala and others.

Last June 20, 2009 at the UP-Ayala Technohub in Commonwealth, Quezon City, I attended the Globe+Google Developer Workshop. There, I have seen the Google APIs(Application Programming Interface) , Globe APIs, Open Social APIs and other APIs. I also wanted to study and use them.

Now, there are so many things I need to study. I decided to study some of them myself and if time permits, attend trainings on these stuffs. I read and just finished reading the book Head First Design Patterns. (I wonder what book to read next?) On my free time, I also read about the Google App Engine and finished reading the "Getting Started" pages. I already started reading articles and training materials for the Spring framework.