Apprenticeship Patterns

APPENDIX B

A Call for Apprenticeship

DavidH. Hoover

NOTE

I posted this on my blog¹ on August 22, 2007. This call to action is aimed at the people who have the power to hire apprentices and establish apprenticeship programs. Even if you don’t currently possess this power, I hope that you can keep these words in mind as you move beyond your apprenticeship years.

At Agile 2007 last week, I snuck into the last 30 minutes of Uncle Bob’s talk about Craftsmanship and Professionalism. When Uncle Bob talks about Craftsmanship he is generally talking about nitty-gritty details of the craft, such as specific practices and tools, but he did have one slide on apprenticeship. He ranted a bit about how most universities do not equip graduates with sufficient skills to allow them to deliver quality software from day one. (Not to mention the significant number of people who come into software development from other fields and have never even received the inadequate computer science education that Bob was referring to.) Bob asserted that we need to apprentice these young people, these graduates and newcomers. He asserted that the most effective learning situation is one where a small number of apprentices work alongside an even smaller number of journeymen, who are receiving guidance from a master craftsman. It was music to my ears until Bob polled the audience for anyone who was working in that environment.

I proudly raised my hand, but my heart sank as I looked around and realized I was the only one ...