A short time ago, I committed to the path of a Padawan learner.

Stay on target, stay on target!

While my journey might not take me light years or galaxies away, nor involve cool instruments of justice such as light sabers, it will involve a long road with much to learn.  This new experience, of submitting myself as an apprentice (hopefully not to a dark master), is a new one.  First, I don’t like “bowing” to anyone.  I am an intelligent person, with plenty of experience and developed neural pathways.  It’s difficult for me to be a student unless I respect the teacher and it becomes evident that there is something I can really learn from them.  Second, I am a sucky student.  School was always pretty easy for me, so to actually TRY at something at this point in life…well, it better be really worth it!

Some Details

It has been an interest of mine and a goal for sometime to learn to code.  I was never sure where to start–what language, what resource, how best to approach it, who to ask.  Should I do formal training in a school/university environment?  Course prerequisites:  Must already know a programming language.  Ok, guess not.  How about friends?  Oh, you know, I just sort of did it growing up.  Wow.  Thanks.  Helpful.  What about books?  I think I was always good at book learning.  Fast-forward a couple of years, and I’m pretty sure I could find those books I bought; they should be mostly dust free.  Hecks, the publisher doesn’t even print the book anymore.

All you need is Ruby

So, what’s next?  Again, with a little prompting, cajoling, harassment and help from a local geek I know, I found Learn Code the Hard Way.  Never having used UNIX before, either, I had to work my way through a tutorial for that.  So now, I am the Kindergartner level Padawan Ruby coder.  Chapter 4….of 52. Look out world!  Here I code!