ExtremisAndy

I think this is basically the whole story. I think the fact that I have learned several programming languages (not expert level, but certainly to the point I can use them to make projects that benefit my life and the lives of others) has fooled me into thinking I should know a lot more about programming than I do. But if I'm honest, what I have essentially done is taken a bunch of 100 level programming courses, just in a variety of languages. I need to spend time studying the more difficult concepts that can be applied to all languages. Thanks for the advice! :)

I love this book! I bought the physical copy years ago and it has frequently been a go-to book of mine. So many tech books (not all, of course) either do a great job of theory but are of little immediate, practical value or they are "cookbook" style and give you lots of useful tidbits but fail to help you grasp the big picture. While there are valid reasons for both of these approaches, of course, this gem is one of the few that are able to do both in one text. You learn a new computer language in the first part, and as soon as you have a foundation in the basics, you immediately jump into practical applications that can benefit your life almost immediately. Very well done, IMHO.

Ahhh the simple TXT days of gopher. I always appreciated gopher and hate more wasn't done with it. Thank you for this!

Not sure how helpful my reply is since I did my PhD in the humanities, but I absolutely did my doctorate while working full time and supporting my wife. Rare, certainly, but not as impossible as it once was. And this was at a legit, SACS accredited U.S. brick and mortar school, not some online diploma mill or anything like that.

This. The Pomodoro Technique has revolutionized my life. I set it for 30 minutes and tell myself "You just need to make a little progress on task X for 30 minutes... You can do it!"

What very often happens, however, is that since I have focused so well during that period, I actually end up completing the task, usually with a few minutes to spare. Feels a bit ridiculous, but, at least in my case (anecdotal, for sure), just giving my brain the 'peace' in knowing that it will only have to focus deeply for 30 minutes seems to help it immensely. Human beings are so strange.

Oh, my! This could not be more perfect for someone like me. I have too short an attention span for long technical articles (not something I'm particularly proud of btw), so the one-page thing is fabulous. I also love that there seems to be such a variety of topics. Finally, I actually really enjoy pulling up and reading a PDF on the iPad. Gives it that real magazine 'feel' that websites just can't get (IMHO). Well done!

Ouch. This hurts. This is my problem exactly. I have two bookshelves full of programming books that I’ve never completed, and yet each morning I spend at least 30 minutes on Amazon reading the TOC of whatever new programming books they’re recommending to me. Imagine if I instead spent that time reading the books I already have. Just simple math shows that would be 180+ hours of learning per year. But my biggest problem is simply deciding where to begin. Which book do I read? As silly as it sounds, that is very often exactly what paralyzes me. I struggle to just pick one and commit to it.

Oh, my! I have spend countless hours on the web looking for (and successfully finding, of course) cheat sheets for all sorts of languages, but somehow I had never come across this site. This is extremely well done. Thank you,spectramax, for basically revolutionizing my life this morning! :)

I second the recommendation of Professional C++. I am just a self-taught programmer, and to be quite honest, felt I was getting in a bit over my head by buying a book aimed at professionals. But I have found the material to be perfectly accessible even for someone without a CS degree, and I am now using C++ for my personal projects. I cannot recommend that book highly enough. Just my $.02

Oh, this is a brilliant idea that seems so obvious as I’m here reading it, but had never occurred to me before. Yes! I’ve always felt that my biggest problem in learning is that I never do anything to really verify I have a truly solid grasp of the material. I read, take notes, convince myself I have some level of understanding, and pat myself on the back for achieving that much. But I’ve got a feeling that if I’d overcome my laziness enough to read, take notes, reflect on my notes, then write a more polished version 2.0 of them as you mentioned, I would definitely take my conceptual understanding to a much deeper level. Thank you for this!

This childish rant is embarrassing. With millions and millions of lines of C code basically running the internet and of vital importance to countless devices, calling it a s*y language is beyond ridiculous.