Dev Learning

Let’s assume you are a developer who was assigned the job of interconnecting a given application X. Let’s assume this application X is very large, but gratefully exposes itself through a SDK. The SDK is of course as complex as the application itself.

Since you don’t know anything about X, you are facing the problem of having to choose the best and fastest learning method. You want to get familiar with the application X in no time, of course. Compared to the times when Internet access was limited and your IDE was lacking IntelliSense of any kind, there are now a lot of options and ways you could be starting learning about an application and its SDK.

So you have at least the following options:

• Read the program documentation.
• Read the SDK documentation.
• Watch videos and podcasts about X.
• Go through each virtual lab available on the internet.
• Install X and play with it until it hurts.
• Pay for an official training.
• Download and install the SDK. Go through each sample.
• Contact a forum, a friend, join a discussion group.

Identifying these options is not a problem in my opinion. But choosing the best order for them might be difficult. I’m guessing not many would afford an official training (though it depends on the project’s scale and the company your working with). So what’s the second best guess?

How do YOU choose your order?

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