New Year’s Resolution #2: Learn to Code
Its a bit late to be writing about New Year’s resolutions, I know.
I had actually planned on rolling them out as a series of posts during the month of January but didn’t have enough to say about each resolution that I figured I’d put it off indefinitely (talk about going following up on Resolution #1: Getting Things Done).
Better late than never though. Come to think about it, at least for two resolutions, its probably better even now as they are no longer just goals, they’re a work in progress.
One of these resolutions is to learn a programming language. For the longest time I’ve known HTML and CSS but the more serious stuff always seemed like a task too daunting.
Last year when I coded a site in CSS from the ground up, I knew that knowledge of PHP was the next logical step, as my WordPress blog ran off of it. I also heard about Ruby on Rails and how it was easy to develop using this platform. Going further a couple of programming books are currently in the Save For Later section of my Amazon cart.
Little did I know that I would be forced into learning not just one but three programming languages. Last month immediately after getting back from news assignment in the United States I began attending summer classes. My last elective before I pursue my final Master’s Project is a class called “Survey of New Technologies”.
Because of my interest in new technologies I thought it would be perfect for the kind of work that I do. It was also one of the few classes offered that matched my work schedule. However little did I know that it would be heavy on programming.
The first week was the toughest. Everyone else was either a CS/MIS student with knowledge of at least Java or C so it was real fast paced. There were times when I’d just stare into the blackboard wanting so desperately to scream out of desperation. I didn’t know anyone either.
But as my mom once told me, some are gifted with natural ability, while the rest just have to work 10 times harder. And that’s what I did. With the help of some great resources on the Internet, and a couple of emails to a friend, I struggled through the next week till I had caught up with the rest of the class.
Did reasonably well on my midterms, and have successfully completed all other class requirements. Exams are extra difficult because you are required to hand code everything onto paper. Today was our final exam and its was the toughest of them all. I wouldn’t say that I’ve mastered each language (my javascript will need a lot more work) but at least I have the foundations that will let me move forward.
I’m quite confident now that I can take a look at code written in any of these three languages and understand what each parameter is trying to do.
