Today is Sunday evening, closer to 7pm PST. I'd say it was overall a good day.
Back in December, I set some goals for myself. I wrote them down in no particular order of importance. Get back in shape, by training for a marathon. And two build a programming portfolio in order to pivot into a new job.
They say, when trying to achieve goals, you need to set a plan and describe how you plan to achieve them. I've always been an impulsive man, and the best I could come up with was writing them down into existence. That was a far as I could get. How was going to achieve them that's another story.
I did make some progress with the running part by finding a novice training plan created by a man named Hal Higdon. I'm out of shape, but not to the point were I will injure myself. As a result, for four weeks, on average 2-3 times a week I've been going on long walks, and recently I've introduced intermittent jogging. I have seen improvment's in my cardio, and no aches or pains so far. So I'd say that's a win.
On Tuesday, am suppose to start week 1 of the novice training plan. It calls for a 3 mile run. I will use that first run as gauge to see where my fitness stands. If I struggle with it, thats ok, i might move the "real" training a week back. I'd say the hard part is actually already out of the way. Which is creating a habit. My jogging/walking hasn't become a habit but it's close.
What' has helped me stay on course? It did help that I did write down my intentions, and two I keep reminding myself the slow way is the fast way. So far so good.
On the programming front, my plan isn't so clear cut. The idea of learning to program isn't so far fetched. See about three years ago, the acquaintance of friend wanted to teach people how to program. I was part of his beta class. There were 4 of us in the class. And right away I must say, I picked it up fairly quickly. He was teaching us Java, and for the most part I was getting the concepts down and completing the programming exercises with ease. He wasn't throwing us softball's either. Unfortunately, the class lasted about a month, before he started cancelling classes last minute and then it just fizzled. I would have loved to continue but it wasn't meant to be. At the very least, it was a good gauge to see if I had the aptitude to pick up a new language.
Move forward to today, and the itch to learn has come calling. I've dabbled with C++ through W3 schools. Which cool but its very basic. I even got a certificate from them but it doesn't mean much. I then came across a man named Reuven Lerner who has a free Python course. I came to learn of him through the HIVE blockchain. I think some guy had a post on the Geeks thread.
Anyway, I wasn't really looking to learn Python but he seemed knowledgeable so I gave it a shot. I watched all of his 15 videos at 2x speed. I didn't go through the exercises, I mainly wanted to just soak it all in by listening. When I do exercises, I have this bad habit of tinkering around like a mofo and I end of getting way too distracted and not focusing on the taks at hand. I think in my programming journey this will be both a blessing and a curse. But I digress.
After completing the course, or running through the vids, I came away with a bunch of useful links and learned some good stuff. YES python is much easier to learn. This redirected my focus from trying to learn C++ and Java to solely focusing on Python.
So what's my plan? I'm still kind of formulating that. But I realized to make my life much easier it is crucial I learn how to use a text editor. To that end, today I started learning how to effectively navigate Visual Code. I found a video on freecodecamp's youtube channel and its been very helpful. Control + Shift + P is my friend. That pallete is so f-ing handy. Control + B, Control + W are other commands I've learned. Also, I learned that in programming copy pasta is also super prevalent lol.
With that said there's never been a better time to be a programmer. There's is so many resources and libraries. If you know where to navigate and know how to connect the dots sort of speak, programming becomes that much easier. Sure there are some "Big Brains" out there who create all these wonderful functions, and programs. But you don't need to be a big brain. These Giant's of men and women did all the f-ing heavy lifting for us. Really man. It's up to us to know where and how to leverage these programs. I'm getting there.
So back to the plan. Man I'm impulsive AF. I guess generally speaking, my plan is to finish the introductory python vid on codeacademy's youtube page. Once I get that out of way. I'm just going to jump f-ing right in and start building some beginner programming projects I found online. I don't have to reinvent the wheel. I just need to learn where to go. I'm pretty sure 99% of programmers are straight up posers copying other people's shite. That's ok only a few really are "Big Brain" giants while the rest of us plebs copy their stuff lol. I mean that's how Binance got big right? Didn't those f*ckers just copy Ethereum and re-brand their shite? lol.
Anyway, its been a good day. Until next time.