A Winter Romance OR Not Learning To Program

Each year about this time I find myself trapped in the house trying to keep my mind busy, and find something to keep me alive. See my post on chronic pain for background on why this is the case. Every year I realize this is not going to happen, but I do it anyway, because life.

I always run into the same problem (aside from the fact that I am fairly certain I am not smart enough to be a programmer). I want to learn language "a", but my goal can only be reached if I choose language "b". In the past I wanted to learn to write apps for iOS which meant ObjectiveC (at the time), but I had more fun playing with Ruby. This year I have the same dilemma. I want to end up writing apps for Android devices eventually (not games) which means learning Java, but Python seems like so much more fun.

I guess the obvious question is, "why not just do what seems fun as you will never succeed in any meaningful way anyway?" The answer is that somewhere buried deep inside is the very faint glimmer of hope that I will indeed succeed.

I chose Java and have started at the beginning again (I played with Java years ago...this has been going on a long time) as a refresher using a free course on Udacity. All I really need to do is kill enough time to get to the summer. Then I can go back to sitting out in the garage and working on rolling my own ammunition.

There have to be other people out there that wish they were capable of doing some thing, "x", realize they do not have the required skills, but keep trying anyway. Maybe I just like the idea of programming? Maybe I like the idea of creativity within stricter bounds? Maybe I am just too lazy to keep at it long enough? Either way, Java it is this time around.

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