Observations on the journey so far

So I am still going through the stuff over at CodeAcademy and feeling really good about it so far... I am working through the JavaScript and JQuery stuff right now. I have finished the HTML and CSS stuff but I expected that to go quickly because I was already fairly familiar with it. What has stuck out at me is that the overall gist of the languages is very similar to what I have done in the past... The concepts are the same, the execution and syntax is the difference. In my eyes this is a good thing for me, I should be able to adapt from one language to another pretty easily.

That said, distraction is a killer... I get distracted and find other things to do every so often, then I find myself missing the process and I go back to it. I suppose this is normal though. Better to do this than to get burned out.

I have also just downloaded and installed GitHub for Windows. I am not sure how I will use it yet or how well it will work for me but I have been told that it is a really good idea to be involved on GitHub. I shall see what happens in time over that.

One thing I am noticing on GitHub is that when I go through the various different projects in different languages, I can understand what they do and how they work, even with languages that I do not know. I am hopeful that is a good sign.

My progress so far from Codeacademy.

First steps

So the C# stuff was a bit overwhelming to start... I am very rusty and just wanted to get back into the swing of things a bit better. So I have started with the HTML/CSS exercises at Codeacademy.

I am already through the first few parts and continuing on through more. I think I have a pretty solid handle on the basics, really this was a good bit of refresher for me as I have not dealt with it in years.

Where to start?

Where will I start... That has been the question I have been asking myself for months. I have a bunch of different books and video tutorials including these:

Beginning Visual C# 2012 Programming

Microsoft Visual C# 2012 Step By Step

C# Bible

Beginning ASP.NET 4.5 In C# And VB

C# 5.0 in a Nutshell

Expert C# 5.0

Professional C# 2012 And NET.4.5

ASP.NET 3.5 for Dummies

30 Days to Learn C#

I also have access to a suite of video training online courses but they all cover Visual Studio 2010.

I have gone through the first few chapters of the first book and intend to go through more. But I do not think that going from chapter 1 to the end in multiple books is the best way to do this. I will probably do some of that but I expect that I will be doing other things as well. I think that I will start going through the last link, it is a video suite that seems to be pretty solid.

Hello world!

Ok so I won't be doing a "hello world" program... My skills are a bit beyond that. 

What I will be doing is documenting my journey from my current IT skills and career into my plan of a career as a professional developer.

So a bit of a background on me.

I have been in the IT world for most of my adult life. I have worked for numerous technology companies including at least 5 Fortune 500 organizations including Dell, Microsoft, Time Warner Cable, Gateway Computer, Lexmark and more. I have a BS in Technical Management and am 1 class away from finishing a MS in Information Systems Management with a project management focus. The first 3 years of my BS were spent taking classes toward a CIS degree but life happened and I was forced to finish the degree years later. The CIS courses I took had me dealing with a good bit of programming. I dealt with HTML, CSS, Java, C++, SQL and more. I spent a good bit of time learning about UML and Rational Rose as well which was pretty awesome.

But, I have never done anything professional with that background. All of my IT jobs have been phone, desktop and server support or similar. I have worked in and around software development and project management environments but never have had to actually write code.

The problem I am having is that the mid career level IT jobs are unstable and due to either being laid off or having contracts end, I have found myself unemployed for a total of more than a year out of the last 2 years. This is unacceptable to me so I am changing my skill set. Developers do not face this problem in today's job market so my aim is to get myself to the point where I can call myself a developer and make a living doing it.

I have always had a passion for programming. I can remember way back in the 1980's copying BASIC code out of the back of Boy's Life magazine on my dad's Apple ][c and being amazed at how it worked and how I could change things to make the programs do different things. I dabbled in BASIC for many years, taking a few classes in high school that taught QBASIC. I was part of a technology class that used early forms of C++ to make a VR "game" environment. The whole thing was quite fascinating, they used ultrasonic sensors under a small trampoline to measure the force applied to a football shaped piece of wood that the user stood on. This allowed the user to move in 3D space within the game which was fed to glasses he would wear. They managed to get a trip to SIGGRAPH out of that. So it was only natural that I also went to college and learned more programming. But as I said I have yet to use it professionally.

This is the start of me aiming to fix that.

My eventual goal is to be able to call myself a developer and have a career as a programmer. My thinking is that I will be aiming for a .NET skill set focusing on C#.

As I write code and blog about it, I intend to have my code published online. I expect that from the start it will be rudimentary but will progress from there. I already have copies of multiple books and other instructional sources for learning to program so many of these posts will involve the various chapters and exercises from them.

I am writing this blog as a way to get my thoughts out, to allow my mind to focus and to document my efforts. If it helps me, it may help someone else too so why not share?

Anyways, with a bit of luck and a lot of hard work, this should be an interesting journey.