Software Engineering is all about solving problems - we write software to solve some problem. So why are we so often frustrated by debugging our code or adapting to change? When confronted with a challenge or a new technology, do you know how to attack that problem and actually learn from it, coming away with a complete understanding of a new concept? Over the past 15 years, I've been teaching myself and then others how to write software, and I've discovered there's so much more to being a good engineer than knowing a language - what we really need to know is how to learn and adapt. Everyone learns differently, but I'll share the techniques I've used to go from a self-taught teenager writing crappy HTML and PHP 4, to making a real career out of solving problems with software - and enjoying the challenges that come along with programming. [90]

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John Anderson at 16:53 on 15 Jul 2017

Good solid talk. Interesting insights.

One suggestion for improvement: work on not reading directly from your speaker notes. In the later parts of the talk, you relaxed a bit and seemed to be going more "off script" -- but the first 30 minutes or so, it was pretty clear you were directly reading your speaker notes.