Information Technology changes rapidly and it can be hard sometimes to keep up with the skills required to maintain your career.

Programming is no exception to the above statement. Lately I have been reading books to upgrade my development skills. Programming is not all about the language you use. It goes way beyond the basic syntax to methodologies, patterns, and best practices.

With our companies latest piece of software we truly jumped into the enterprise market. I figured I better get up to speed on enterprise programming techniques as the software is growing fast and will need to be flexible and very maintainable. Consider it a bit of IT professional development.

My first stop along the career training path was to start reading Foundations of Programming Ebook by Karl Seguin which walks you through everything you need to know about programming for the enterprise and writing maintainable code.

This approach to continuing education applies to most trades, maybe not to the extent as IT. The long and the short of it is you never stop learning and you can’t survive in a career without learning new skills as they are presented. Consider professional development like the Natural Selection of the work force. If your skills are weak or out of date you will get pushed out by younger or more educated workers. It’s survival of the smartest working.