Learning the Basics

If you are not retired, you don’t know what your responsibilities will be five years from now, even if you have solid plans.  You need a broad exposure to principles and practices.  You need to plan for continuing education, whether formal, informal, or self-study.

The time I spent learning details of specific commands and features of languages and operating systems in use at school were good training about which details are important.  However, every place I have gone has had a different machine, with different operating systems and language variations.  You must learn fundamentals if you are going to have the ability to learn on your own.  If you merely try to memorize current system details, you will never keep up with changes.

It is impossible for a text to predict your particular interests or employment situation.  It is also common that an individual's interests or circumstances change in ways they did not anticipate 5 years earlier.