Programming has been difficult…
My introduction to programming (technology really) was about 18 months ago during my first week at work. I went over to our development team to tell them that our website was “broken”. They checked it out and asked me what browser I was using. My response “I don’t know” resulted in pretty significant laughing, but when i told them I was on IE 6 - they erupted.
I have come a long way since, but I literally started from scratch. Over the past year, on and off, I have spent a ton of time trying to teach myself basic web programming and it has been a struggle. The first time I installed MySql on my windows machine I am pretty sure it took between 6-8 hours. I jumped right in with the django framework, mainly because I figured I would need to see results to stay interested. After a couple of months learning the basics, I came up against a firm wall when I realized I knew no python. I took a few weeks off, but a friend suggested I try out RoR, and that got me back into it. At first it was much the same, but I spent a little longer on the Ruby piece, and it was just enough to hang on.
The most important lesson I have learned so far, is that learning to program requires suffering. There will be impossible problems that would take an experienced developer 30 seconds that might take you 3 weeks. Probably more than one. Learning to struggle though is what has helped me think and reason through issues. Over time I have learned better ways to problem solve.
This weekend I am going to launch my first rails app, it is a pretty straightforward affiliate site that points out the savings associated with buying a coffeemaker and drinking coffee at home. I used the ruby-aaws gem to tie in with the Amazon API and then did some calculations based on assumptions of coffee consumption/cost.
I doubt I will make much money( if at all), but building this simple app has been one of the most rewarding things I have done. I have 20 more ideas that I cannot wait to try out, and will definitely be spending as much time as possible on getting better. Keep pushing, because its deinitely worth it.
