The son of a master thief asked his father to teach him the secrets of the trade. The old thief agreed and that night took his son to burglarize a large house. While the family was asleep, he silently led his young apprentice into a room that contained a clothes closet. The father told his son to go into the closet to pick out some clothes. When he did, his father quickly shut the door and locked him in. Then he went back outside, knocked loudly on the front door, thereby waking the family, and quickly slipped away before anyone saw him. Hours later, his son returned home, bedraggled and exhausted. “Father,” he cried angrily, “Why did you lock me in that closet? If I hadn’t been made desperate by my fear of getting caught, I never would have escaped. It took all my ingenuity to get out!” The old thief smiled. “Son, you have had your first lesson in the art of burglary.”

That was a Zen story about learning the hard way. The software development world these days is a comfort one where one can get anything done with few tools and few mouse clicks. While it can help one achieve what needs to be done but personally if one wants to build a career the basics are important and the basics does not come easier and only through hard work and effort.  For that matter think of learning anything new, say for example learning to bicycle or learning to play an instrument or as from the Zen story even to become a thief. One cannot become even an amateur in a day or two. But the transition from amateur to professional can be lot smoother because there is a groundwork set. So if you are new to software development learning the hard way initially can help in setting up a strong foundation.

Note:- This post is part of the “Foundations” series.