| I started learning python in March of this year. I couldn't tell you how much time I've put into it - it's hard to keep track of. Within two months I had my first rudimentary web app up and running. I used Django for the app itself and used linode for the hosting. Now it's not a great app by any means. It doesn't make a real contribution to the world. But the experience was enormously satisfying and genuinely life changing. One thing that astonished me was that I had to learn a whole lot less than I thought I would in order to actually get something done. One of my best mates has been coding in PHP for years and years and watching him made me think that the process of deploying a webapp was monumental. I thought - wow, I have to learn html, mysql, css, before I can even make use of my pythony backend. But it's just not true anymore. There is so much free code out there - enormous amounts. It's a wonder to me now why everyone isn't coding. It's really only one level of effort removed beyond learning to deal with the shitty interface on over hyped product X you just blew your hard earned on. Just over six months on from the time I started - I certainly don't count myself particularly skilled as a coder - not by any means. But no matter what I think up to do next, within a few days I've figured out how to do it. I kinda feel like there just isn't anything I can't do if I put my mind to it. As my confidence grows I come up with ever more ambitious ideas. It's a wonderful feeling. So stop worrying about how much time it's gonna take you to get to your (probably myopically) perceived endpoint - and just get on with putting code to screen to see what you can do right now. It's a lot more than you think. |