[phaus]

Two questions, if you don't mind.

Do you program at work?

When you say it took a month to get started, were you creating anything more complex than a simple command line program that does basic math or prints strings?

The reason I ask is because I haven't had much of a problem understanding the syntax of any language or figuring out fizz buzz or other simple tutorials, but I still struggle to create things that someone might actually want to use.

My greatest work thus far is a website that: looks nice, has no content, and has a sign-up form validated with jQuery and PHP. I've been learning off and on for over a year now.

[keenahn]

I do program at work, so I have logged many "flight hours" so to speak.

I learned CS basics over time, but I created my first webapp in two weeks, knowing nothing of web technologies before that. The education and tools are a lot better now, so I think someone trying to learn now would have everything they need to make a basic app in a month.

As for building something that other people want to use, well that is a separate question :) sounds like you are well on your way.

[LarryMade2]

"...but I still struggle to create things that someone might actually want to use."

There, that's one of the problems programmers have to get over. Don't always try to create things that people might actually use, make up stupid stuff. Fiddle around try out silly ideas, proficient is partly having experience in coding a lot.

Doing different stuff, though maybe useless to the rest of the world, helps build style and practices creating better code. And at times though that you develop new ideas an methods for doing things.

So you got a nice no-content site, can you expand on it no-content-ness, make it a great... no.. an utterly fantastic no-content site? (then again, there are a ton of no-content sites you would be competing with :-)