1. Guidelines for Future Software Engineers Svetlin Nakov, Ph.D. Telerik Software Academy academy.telerik.com Senior Technical Trainer www.nakov.com

2.  Step 1 : Define Your Goals  Web / Mobile / Java / Embedded / QA / …  Step 2 : Find Resources  Courses, Tutorials, Videos, Books, etc.  Step 3 : Practice, Practice, Practice!  Practical Projects every day  Step 4 : Join the Community  User groups, IT school, IT university  Step 5 : Start a Job in the Industry 2

3. What Kind of Developer You Want to Become?

4.  What kind of software engineer you want to become (what position)?  Software Developer  Designer / Front-End Developer  Developer Support Engineer  Software Quality Assurance Engineer (QA)  Business Analyst / Requirements Engineer  System Administrator / IT Specialist  Project Manager / IT Manager 4

5.  What technology you want to learn?  Web Development  PHP / Zend / CakePHP / Symfony / MySQL  C# / ASP.NET MVC / Web Forms / EF / SQL Server  Ruby / Rails / Sinatra / MySQL  Python / Django / MySQL / PostgreSQL  Java / Java EE / Servlets / JSP / JSF / JPA / Oracle  JavaScript / Node.js / MySQL / MongoDB  HTML 5, JavaScript / jQuery / AJAX / REST / JSON 5

6.  What technology you want to learn ?  Mobile Development (Smart Phones / Tablets)  iOS / iPhone / iPad / Objective C / XCode / Cocoa Touch  Android / Java / Eclipse  Windows Phone / Silverlight / C# / Visual Studio  Blackberry / C / C++ / Java / HTML 5 / WebWorks  Cross-Platform Mobile Frameworks / PhoneGap / Titanium / Rhodes 6

7.  What technology you want to learn?  Server-Side Development  Java / Java EE / Spring Framework / Hibernate / JPS / JAX-WS / JAX-RS / Oracle  C# /.NET Framework / WCF / WWF / ADO.NET Entity Framework / SQL Server  Database Development  Oracle / SQL Server / MySQL / PostgreSQL / Stored Procedures / ETL / Reporting / DBA 7

8.  What technology you want to learn?  Game Development  2 D / 3 D Graphics / C++ / OpenGL / DirectX / XNA / Geometry / Physics / AI / Networking  Mobile Games  Facebook Games  Embedded Development  Microcontrollers / Real-Time Systems / RTOS / Embedded OS / C / C++ / Assembler 8

9.  Is your desired technology / position accurate to the modern trends?  You might want to be a spacecraft developer but do you find any job openings?  You might become a 3 D game developer but check whether this is a perspective profession  Prefer technologies and positions with high demand in the industry!  E.g. Web developer / iOS developer /.NET Developer / Java developer 9

10. Join Courses, Follow Tutorials, Watch Videos, Read Books, Articles, Blogs, etc.

11.  Finding teaching resources for learning the technologies you want  Join courses  Free / paid / live / online  Watch video tutorials / video courses  Follow tutorials  Just search in Google  Read books  Read articles / blogs 11

12.  Telerik Academy – academy.telerik.com academy.telerik.com  Free software development courses + videos  HTML 5, C#, algorithms, ASP.NET MVC, mobile development, cloud development, SEO, software engineering, QA, high-quality code, …  School Academy – schoolacademy.telerik.com schoolacademy.telerik.com  PHP, Web development, HTML 5, JavaScript, C#,.NET, databases, SQL, SQL Server, MySQL, ORM, ADO.NET EF, WPF, 3 D game development, embedded systems 12

13.  Kids Academy – telerik-kids.com telerik-kids.com  Free C++ programming courses  For 9 - 13 years old children  Algo Academy – algoacademy.telerik.com algoacademy.telerik.com  Free preparation for the informatics contests  Algorithms, data structures, competitive programming for contests and Olympiads  Web Design, HTML, JavaScript  http://tiny.cc/frontend-videos http://tiny.cc/frontend-videos 13

14.  PHP & MySQL  http://tiny.cc/php-mysql-academy http://tiny.cc/php-mysql-academy  C# Programming and Algorithms  http://tiny.cc/csharp-videos http://tiny.cc/csharp-videos  ASP.NET MVC Development  http://tiny.cc/aspnetmvc-videos http://tiny.cc/aspnetmvc-videos  ASP.NET Web Forms Development  http://tiny.cc/aspnet-videos http://tiny.cc/aspnet-videos  Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  http://tiny.cc/seocourse-videos http://tiny.cc/seocourse-videos 14

15.  Mobile Development  http://tiny.cc/mobile-dev-videos http://tiny.cc/mobile-dev-videos  iPhone Development  http://tiny.cc/iphone-dev-videos http://tiny.cc/iphone-dev-videos  Android Development  http://tiny.cc/android-videos http://tiny.cc/android-videos  Databases and SQL  http://tiny.cc/databases-academy http://tiny.cc/databases-academy  http://www.db-class.org http://www.db-class.org 15

16.  High-Quality Code  http://tiny.cc/quality-code-videos http://tiny.cc/quality-code-videos  Game Development  http://tiny.cc/game-dev-videos http://tiny.cc/game-dev-videos  Java Programming  http://tiny.cc/java-dev-videos http://tiny.cc/java-dev-videos  MIT OpenCourseWare  http://tiny.cc/mit-ocw-dev-courses http://tiny.cc/mit-ocw-dev-courses  Stanford Open Engineering Courses  http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx http://see.stanford.edu/see/courses.aspx 16

17. Work on Real-World Practical Projects

18.  There is only one way to learn programming and software development  Most people learn the basics of programming in 5 - 6 months to 1 year ( 8 - 10 hours / day)  To learn coding well you need to write 30 000 – 50 000 lines of code (at least)  To become an expert you may need 3 - 5 years (full time – 8 - 10 hours / day) 18 Practice, Practice, Heavy Practice!

19.  To become a good developer you need to:  Solve few hundreds of programming tasks  E.g. all exercises from the Intro C# book – introprogramming.info/intro-csharp-book introprogramming.info/intro-csharp-book  Create few larger practical projects  E.g. create your own simplified Facebook  E.g. develop your own accounting software 19 Practice programming every day for few years!

20.  Creating real-world projects is essential!  Watching videos / reading books in not enough  Work on practical projects every day  For Web developers  Learn Web design, HTML and some CMS system  Learn ASP.NET MVC or PHP or Ruby or Python  Create your own web site / blog  Create at least 5 - 10 web sites and applications  Create your own Facebook / Flickr / YouTube / … 20

21.  For desktop developers  Learn C#, databases, SQL, EF and WPF  Create your own video player / Minesweeper, Tetris / calculator / Windows explorer / Paint  Create your own accounting software / warehouse management / retail system  For game developers  Learn C++, OpenGL and 2 D / 3 D graphics  Create your own Popcorn / Xonix / Tetris  Create your own 3 D striker game 21

22.  For mobile developers  Learn some of the mobile platforms  Android / iOS / Windows Phone / Blackberry  Along with the languages, APIs and tools  Create at least 5 - 10 simple applications  E.g. Tetris game / calculator / alarm clock / gallery viewer / mp3 player / video player / text editor  Create at least 2 - 3 more complex applications  E.g. chat server + mobile client / foursquare app 22

23.  For embedded developers  Learn to program for 2 - 3 embedded platforms  E.g. Arduino + Atmel AVR + PIC  Learn C language, the tools and APIs  Learn to control peripheral devices  E.g. GPIO (input / output pins), buttons, displays, SD card, RS- 232 serial interface, USB interface, timers, sensors, networking, RFID, Bluetooth, …  Create 4 - 5 practical projects: e.g. traffic lights, card based access control system, MP 3 player 23

24.  For server-side developers  Server-side development is not for beginners!  Try to start a job and study at work  Two possible tracks  Java + Java EE + ORM Frameworks + Oracle  C# +.NET + ORM + SQL Server + WCF + WWF  Learning server-side development is a big effort  Once you learn programming, it will take 3 - 5 years to learn server-side development 24

25.  For database developers  Several possible tracks  Oracle / SQL Server / PostgreSQL / MySQL / cloud databases  First learn SQL, database design, database transactions and database reporting  Get familiar with database administration  Get familiar with BI (business intelligence), data warehouse systems, etc.  Start a job and learn at work! 25

26.  For business analysts  Not for beginners – learn business and IT, start a job and practice at work  For software architects  Not for beginners – learn software development and practice 8 - 10 years everyday (full time)  For software project managers  Not for beginners – learn to develop software and practice 7 - 8 years everyday (full time) 26

27. User Groups, Mailing Lists, Seminars, IT School, IT University

28.  To be a developer, you must join the development community  Join Telerik academy initiatives  Enter in the best High School / University related to your goals in your area  Join to the user groups in your area  Take part in their seminars and events  Regularly visit the forums related to your goals  Join the mailing lists related to your goals 28

29.  To be a developer, you must join the development community  Visit regularly any seminars and conferences related to your goals  Join the local hacker space community  Join any other community organizations  Take part in all related programming contests, tournament s and Olympiads  Create a blog and share your knowledge / establish your own events / courses / organizations 29

30.  initLab (hacker space in Sofia) – initlab.org initlab.org  varnaLab (hacker space Varna) – varnalab.org varnalab.org  SofiaDev.NET user group – sofiadev.org sofiadev.org  Java users group (Sofia) – java-bg.org java-bg.org  Oracle user group – bgoug.org bgoug.org  Sofia JavaScript user group – sofiajs.org sofiajs.org  Ruby on Rails community – bgonrails.com bgonrails.com  Drupal Bulgaria – drupalbg.org drupalbg.org  Joomla Bulgaria – joomla-bg.com joomla-bg.com 30

31.  Photoshop Bulgaria – photoshop.bg photoshop.bg  SQL & BI Bulgaria – bgsqlgroup.com bgsqlgroup.com  BG PostgreSQL Group – bgpug.groupsite.com bgpug.groupsite.com  Silverlight Bulgaria – silverlight.bg silverlight.bg  NLP Club Bulgaria – nlpclub.devbg.org nlpclub.devbg.org  SharePoint User Group Bulgaria – sugbg.org sugbg.org  Azure User Group Bulgaria – azure.bg azure.bg  Flex User Group Bulgaria – flex.riabg.org flex.riabg.org  C++ Bulgarian User Group – cppbg.devbg.org cppbg.devbg.org 31

32.  Scrum Bulgaria – scrumbulgaria.org scrumbulgaria.org  Linux Bulgaria – linux-bulgaria.org linux-bulgaria.org  Linux for Bulgarians – linux-bg.org linux-bg.org  iPhone Bulgaria – iphone-bulgaria.com iphone-bulgaria.com  Solaris BG User Group – bgsug.filibeto.org bgsug.filibeto.org  Bulgarian Association of Software Developers (BASD) – devbg.org devbg.org  Nakov.com Portal for Developers – nakov.com nakov.com 32

33. Start a Job in the Software Industry Learn and Practice at Work

34. 34  The best way to learn real-world software development:  Working on real-world commercial projects is essential to gain practical skills and experience  The best developers learn their job at work  Start by learning programming at home / class  Start as junior developer and trainee  Become regular / senior developer / team leader Start a Job as Developer!

35. Questions? http://www.nakov.com