Re: [OT] A question for programmers - Inspiration
On Thu, Mar 20, 2003 at 09:30:49PM -0800, Barry deFreese wrote:
>
> I will definetely check into the books and such you have suggested.
> However, two of my fundamental problems are thus: I don't learn a great
> deal from reading unfortunately. I am pretty much a hands on guy with a
> background in networking and infrastructure stuff.
I am of a similar temperment. I never read a non-fiction book if I can
avoid it (with the exception of ancient historians and philosophers). I
get by quite well just picking up a little at a time, and what I do pick up
I really understand.
> Two ( too Chad's point ) the problem is, is that when I have an
> enlightenment, I guess I get intimidated because the things that I want
> to do are well above my skillsets. I want to write kernel level stuff
> when I'm lucky to write my name!! :-) (Somewhat of a chicken before the
> egg type of syndrome I suppose). I don't want to walk into flying, I
> want to fly into flying!! :-)
As the angel Gabriel said: Fear not!
First of all, you mustn't be afraid of throwing away code. Write it, and
if it sucks, rewrite it. Again and again. Every time you do this, you'll
learn something, at least, if you pay attention to what you're doing. And
don't worry about This doesn't mean you shouldn't think before you code
(you should), but that you shouldn't _not_ code because you aren't sure
that you're doing it right. Rewriting something is almost always easier
than writing it the first time was (says I, who just rewrote the card
display code in my bridge game twice in the last week--maybe two weeks).
Secondly don't worry about wasting time on a project that you drop later.
You will have learned from it. I spent three or four months a couple years
back working on a recipe database program, which I later decided was crud
(it really was, although I did use it for a few months to print out my
shopping lists). This wasn't a waste of time, as I gained an understanding
of writing GUIs and learned a bit of SQL, and more importantly learned more
about databases.
Thirdly, don't be afraid to start a project that you don't know enough to
finish. Learn as you go. The best way to learn to do anything (well,
almost anything--don't try this with airplane piloting), is to do it. With
most of the projects I've worked on, I started out by learning either a
language or a GUI library (or something else equally complicated) just for
that project.
Finally, I want to reiterate what someone else said, which is that you need
to work on a project that you want to use.
--
David Roundy
http://www.abridgegame.org
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