[JonnieCache]

>This is one of my flaws...I'm not very confident in my abilities

Realise that lack of confidence is just another way of saying "knows his limitations." This is an asset that most people at your level don't have.

If you want to learn some CS, here's a concept for you: Fail Fast

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Fail_Fast

This concept, like many CS concepts is often generalised by hackers to life in general. Practice makes perfect. What does practice mean? Doing things badly over and over again until you get better. Viewed in this light, failure is an asset. As long as you learn from it, you can see each failure as another step on the road to success.

As I say, hackers generally take this attitude that failure is good. Strolling into an IRC channel or message board for a particular technology and professing your utter ignorance and incompetence concerning the matter will likely not be met with the derision you might fear. Most people are more eager to help the humble than the bullish.

EDIT: Also read this book before you read any actual programming books. Don't worry when you don't understand parts of it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

[jrookie]

Thanks,

I tried reading that Godel book and I couldn't wrap my head around it, I will give it a second shot though.

[JonnieCache]

I think the best thing to do when you get to the really dense sections is just to plough through. It reaches a critical mass of crazy notation and mindbending logic in the middle, but once you get past that it drops back to being relatively graspable again as he addresses different areas. At least for a while :)

As I said, don't expect yourself to really understand all of it the first time you read it. Read it for the bits you do understand, not the bits you don't. Even if that turns out to only include the Carrol-esque dialogue, it's worth it.