What a beautifully written article. You explained me. You explained it well. I've never picked up a guitar, but I am a coder, and really, to learn anything, you have to at least be interested and wanting to learn. Most important, you could read a hundred books, but actually doing something with the knowledge is the only way to really learn.
I am a self-taught programmer and never had any dreams of ever doing it for a living, yet here I am, started off getting hired as a programmer for Visual Basic 6.0 working on autobody shop software. I eventually left that job ( http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/the-opportunity/ ) and got a job working in web design for a media company.
I had taken a few college classes in programming and realized it really was mostly just theory and little sample designs. Nothing that I have really ever used or that helped
me. Sure, I got a good grade.. passed the class, but that was about it.
Most code that has been useful has always come from me learning it myself. I tried taking a database course and ended up having to drop it because it just confused me. A few weeks later, I spent 3 hours teaching myself about SQL queries and adding, removing, editing, and deleting data. I completely understood it and that escalated me into actually making valuable web apps in which I am actually charging money to clients to use.
And as you said, "build and build some more" .. absolutely right! This is the project, a free web app, that got me started doing what I am doing: https://mypost.io
Solve a problem: I wanted to get a web page up on the internet in seconds without having to worry about registering for an account or having to share my email with yet another website.
Everything since then has only be escalating my knowledge and even helping me to enhance my code for the better.
I am a self-taught programmer and never had any dreams of ever doing it for a living, yet here I am, started off getting hired as a programmer for Visual Basic 6.0 working on autobody shop software. I eventually left that job ( http://www.confessionsoftheprofessions.com/the-opportunity/ ) and got a job working in web design for a media company.
I had taken a few college classes in programming and realized it really was mostly just theory and little sample designs. Nothing that I have really ever used or that helped me. Sure, I got a good grade.. passed the class, but that was about it.
Most code that has been useful has always come from me learning it myself. I tried taking a database course and ended up having to drop it because it just confused me. A few weeks later, I spent 3 hours teaching myself about SQL queries and adding, removing, editing, and deleting data. I completely understood it and that escalated me into actually making valuable web apps in which I am actually charging money to clients to use.
And as you said, "build and build some more" .. absolutely right! This is the project, a free web app, that got me started doing what I am doing: https://mypost.io
Solve a problem: I wanted to get a web page up on the internet in seconds without having to worry about registering for an account or having to share my email with yet another website.
Everything since then has only be escalating my knowledge and even helping me to enhance my code for the better.
Great advice!