A new beginning

When I started programming six months ago, I knew basically nothing apart from that I wanted to work at home and this was a career that would let me do that. I remember my best high school math teacher encouraging us to learn Q-Basic, which was built into our graphing calculators. But other than that, nothing. It was all gibberish and gobbledygook at first. But I was surprised how quickly that changed once I started learning a little bit, and how my existing skills in logic and algebra would be helpful in this weird new field.

I probably should have started this blog from day one, but I’m starting it now. I’ll chronicle my progress here as a way to share my experience with you, dear reader, and also as a way to keep myself on track and stay motivated to keep learning. My goal is to build my skills enough to land a work-at-home programming job. I’ll need to continue balancing my learning time with my part-time work and family responsibilities, and my own ebbs and flows in personal motivation and energy. When I’m at my best, I find that I’m spending at least a some time programming every day. At times I lapse in my progress, as other things take priority, but I’ve found my new skills to be reasonably “sticky,” meaning I can jump back in and within a short time get up to speed with whatever concept I was previously learning.

For those who read and follow along on this journey, I’ll try to share some tips and lessons I’ve learned and interesting anecdotes. I’m a novice and mid-career changer without a lot of prior technical expertise, so I hope this blog may be relevant to other folks who are contemplating jumping into computer programming without a lot of background knowledge. I’ll start by reviewing what I’ve learned so far, as well as posting updates on new progress and challenges I’ve faced. I’m looking forward to sharing this adventure with you!