Method of Learning

Last week I came across one of Jesse Liberty's blog posts titled "OMG, where do I start?"

It is mostly geared for someone just starting with Silverlight, and while experienced, I still found it very insightful.

Here is the link:
http://jesseliberty.com/2009/07/28/omg-where-do-i-start/

One thing that I thought was particularly interesting is the following quote:

Top Down vs. Bottom Up

I’ll define these as follows (and let’s not quibble about corner-cases)

Top Down – Learn Silverlight by starting with what you want to build and learning how to build that – learn just enough  of each skill to build your product.

Bottom Up – Set your project aside, learn the core skills, then look to combine them to successively approximate your project.

Of course, very few thoughtful people will take one approach to the total exclusion of the other but it is startling how many folks really try the Top Down approach. 

I’m pretty sure some folks succeed with Top Down,  but I’ve never seen it.

As I'm trying to figure out some stuff for a personal project, I realize I followed this pattern. I'm trying to learn just enough animation to solve this problem, and I'm trying to accomplish it by reading and learning some open source code, and while that technique usually works for me, its not working in this case. Because of my fail, I've started looking at some about the basics of animation in SL, including reading some tutorials, blog posts, and the new book I mentioned in a previous email. I've discovered I need a foundation in Silverlight animation to accomplish my goal. So, Pete's blog post was insighful, and the quoted bit above is particularly relevant.

While I think there's nothing wrong with reading code to figure things out, I do think that there are times, when the problem is sufficiently difficult, where it might not be enough.

Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design by Alan Shalloway
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The book covers the basics of UML and object oriented design, some common patterns, and commonality and variability analysis.

While I was reading it, I didn't think the authors chose a very apt title for the book; after finishing it, I realized that the authors are trying to explain how patterns are derived. In fact, at one point in the book the authors point out that it is much more important that you understand the basic principles of design patterns than it is to memorize patterns and diagrams.

The material is presented clearly with plenty of examples and is easy to read.

If you're looking for a book on patterns, you'd be better off with something like Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software, in fact I think this book would make a good segue to that one.

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The Design of Everyday Things by Donald A. Norman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you aren't a "designer of things", this book is still worth reading. The concepts are easy to understand and apply. The book points out common flaws in design that are all around us. It is a little dated, but I didn't find that to be a problem and it was interesting to note how things have changed, for the better, since the book was first published. Clearly people have read this book and applied the ideas within...in my mind, that is reason enough to read it.

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