They say it takes a few months to get a good habit down. I am at the point where if I freeze my streak for too long, i.e. don’t program but pause my streak for a few days, it stresses me out. I feel rusty or not in the zone. And I sometimes feel I’m in the zone when I find the time to work through a couple of lessons one after the other.
I’m feeling slightly less mystified by the whole programming thing. I still have moments of intense frustration and can get exasperated when I feel certain concepts have not been explained but just need to be known.
But, even though I hate the technology behind it and it sometimes flat-out tells me the solution, I like conversing with the AI helper Boots. It gives the whole thing a bit more of a face and of course he’s relentlessly encouraging. Something I don’t mind for a change since this thing is not my forte.
What I realize the longer I continue my learning, is that I find the process of programming, though difficult to grasp, very cool. The idea that something is automated is just very attractive. And having sorted through photos, putting them in different folders and doublechecking their dates, I’m pretty sure that’s something I could maybe automate in the future.
But I’m also getting impatient. The jump from this stage to actually getting to do what I want or think I’ll find most interesting still looms large. There’s a part of me that is used to having a clear idea of what I need to learn to go from beginner to advanced. I’m not that clear about the roadmap this time, and in addition to feeling like I don’t understand the computer enough, it also makes me worry I don’t have enough control about it and thus cannot make it do what I’d eventually like it to.
But even though the utilitarian purpose of this new language still remains somewhat hidden, I know it’s there. I do like a challenge in the end, and beyond that there’s nothing more I like than facing it head-on.
Bitesized Writing 