The thing about programming is its all about practicing and struggling. Its about working on project that would affect peoples life immensely. Its about being in the center of mess up. That is the only way I have added to my skills and sadly those things haven't happened as much as I would love too.
So the natural thing to do is to read and learn to improve my skills. Books and tutorials helped in a number of ways but again the thing about books/tutorials is after you read them and
figured that you know certain things (or all there is to know) about that topic
and leave that book/tutorial for a while, you are doomed to repeat that material. To say the
least that is what happened with me and js/JQuery/php and Python. Since I work
with Java at my regular job I kind of feel pretty much comfortable with it, at
least with the mundane codes I’m required to maintain and write. But the rest,
even though I have read some books/tutorials, I never feel comfortable and I have to go
through the basics every time I want to write something simple.
Actually with
coding is not never like writing an email or letter, where you open your editor and just
right away write what you have in mind. Most programmers I know spent huge
amount of time just finding errors and debugging. I have also read about
programmers who spend most of their time just thinking before starting to
program and I hope to meet one.
Anyways back to my point, the challenge I wanted to talk about is not just about that book example, the challenge is when you are in a situation where you repeatedly become off grid. May be it's because of a long meeting, or a new worthless management position or because of chilling with friends. Whatever the reason i just find myself off grid for days and its it all seems strange to get back to coding once again.
So the real struggle is to not be off grid and to at least try to write or debug for hours a day. Hence I constantly reckon that if I was actively working in a project using these awesome tools or languages, I’m sure by now I would be worrying about something advanced. So when it comes to coding reading alone is not going to cut the chase, neither is occasional coding but to struggle to not get off grid. To stay on grid and to be coding every day for a minimum of 2 hours, I believe this list would help me:
So the real struggle is to not be off grid and to at least try to write or debug for hours a day. Hence I constantly reckon that if I was actively working in a project using these awesome tools or languages, I’m sure by now I would be worrying about something advanced. So when it comes to coding reading alone is not going to cut the chase, neither is occasional coding but to struggle to not get off grid. To stay on grid and to be coding every day for a minimum of 2 hours, I believe this list would help me:
- A real project I actually care for, and which I can learn something from,
- Move to a place where I would interact with real programmers and developers on a daily basis, Silicon Valley would be the dream ;). Though there are a number of online communities where you would find these people, it’s obvious that it is never the same as real interaction. Not to mention the mean responses and frowns you get.
- A playground where I can practice, create and share with the rest of the world,
- To be an avid follower and sponge learner of sites like hackersnewsletter.com, stackoverflow.com and http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/. To be honest I have learned a lot from the these in just a short time that I wasn’t able to get from my current company, school or books,
- An open source project I can participate,
- My own open source project.
I don’t think I am able to do some of the things I mentioned
hear at the moment but I have promised myself to do them sooner than
later and to use this blog as the playground I mentioned at number 3. I have my
own project besides my day time job which have been really helpful to not get off
grid with coding
