Who Said What Now?

I dunno, I don't think I ever used to have to read something twice, or three times (or more) for it to begin to make sense. Maybe that's just the way it works when you get into your 40s.

Transcendental

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, not quite half awake, yet absolutely convinced I could program the TARDIS in Objective-C.

Devour

The past two days have been intense, but tremendously satisfying.

I want to push everything else aside, all of the work that needs to be done, all of the phone calls to be made, bills to be paid — I just want to concentrate on learning. I can't, of course. I get this way when I've discovered something new and compelling, a book or film, or a lover — I want time to stand still, and I want that forever to learn everything, all at once. I want to devour.

Error

If there's anything worse than a book with typographical errors it's a programming book with typographical errors.

Bowl-O-Rama

I really don't want to keep throwing $30 and $40 books at the problem — I can't afford to! — but I still feel as though I don't have a firm enough grasp of the very basic stuff to make the less-very basic stuff less baffling.

(Remember that episode of The Simpsons, where Homer's only hope to keep his dream job at the Bowl-O-Rama is to come up with a plan to increase business? He starts out consulting "Advanced Marketing," the next scene has that book in the trash as he reads "Basic Marketing," and the scene that follows has both books in the trash as he's reading the Dictionary. That's kinda how I feel.)

So this afternoon, I'm reading Objective-C for Absolute Beginners. I also bought iPhone and iPad Apps for Absolute Beginners, which probably wasn't necessary, but better safe than sorry.

Distractible

I can't listen to podcasts while reading this stuff — I can't even listen to music.

Novice

One of the problems I find with the books I've been studying is that, much as they've been (mostly) designed with the novice in mind, I'm still feeling the presumption that there are very basic concepts I should understand — and confusion and frustration when I don't. (I read today that just about everyone is confused and frustrated by this stuff at the start.)

So off I go, in search of something more simple.

I've had the good fortune to find BecomeAnXcoder, a free PDF book that's meant to serve as an introduction for non-programmers. It'd probably make a great eBook (if I had a great eBook reader), but instead, I've printed all 60-odd pages, and put them in a bright red binder. (I've discovered that when I scribble notes in the margins it helps to reinforce what I've learned.) It really is beginning to clear up some of the mystery about some very basic stuff, and how that all relates to other very basic stuff.