I'm Going to Learn a Language

So I have a new project

For those of you who have followed our ramblings for a while, it will come to no surprise that I go through spurts of creativity. Some of these spurts of creativity have tangible outcomes, like a self-published book for example. Other projects start to lift off the ground, and I tire of them quite quickly, as written in my last entry for the The Crowdfund Coach.

I've been big on self-development and mentioned wanting to learn a language at the start of the year. I was deliberately vague about what kind of language as I didn't want to restrict myself.

After acquiring some DJ gear from my good friend Jimmy (he sold it to help fund his overseas adventure). I've been learning how to mix. Seven recorded mixes later, I realise I have a shitload to learn and am relishing the challenge.

My gear
And my Soundcloud can be found here:

Things are going to start off messy

As much as I enjoy DJing (and consider it a language). I think it's a bit of a cop-out to simply stop there. So indulge us in another tangent. I've been considering study again. I've been really encouraged by what's available on Open Universities Australia but don't want to commit to study if I don't have the discipline. Even with FEE-HELP it's an expensive enterprise and I want to be sure that I'm doing it for the right reasons. Courses that interest me include Masters degrees in IT, Design, and even going for an MBA, but I need to be sure that I can go all the way.

So I ended up writing a list of things that have been interesting me lately, this included:

• design
• API hacking
• emerging technology
• data visualisation
• social
• learning more about mobile

What this buzzy-like terminology told me, is that I need to learn more about coding.

It's not easy, mate

That is some of the appeal. If I can't dedicate myself to this for six months, what hope do I have for completing a Masters degree in two or three years time? So I started gathering information under a new project tab, and storing it in my Evernote.

I uncovered a number of resources and am assembling it all while trying to avoid information overload. The literature I've started reading includes: Codecademy, HackDesign, Project Euler, a teach-yourself-guide from Lifehacker, and a more structured 'night course' from the same name.

I've also downloaded two programming languages: Python and Processing. The former is mean to be pretty fast and good for getting you familiar with the right kinds of logic, the latter is a good language for designers and is open source. Also, my very limited understanding from what I've read thus far tells me that it doesn't really matter which languages you learn first - it's more the theory and concepts.

My first task

Was a course on Codecademy on Web Fundamentals and got me familiar with the very basics of HTML. Feeling inspired, I decided to write this entry in HTML. This should get me used to the effort involved and what I can and can't do.

So it begins :)