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.