Which Coding Languages are the most beneficial to learn, for me?

I started thinking today about what I wanted to accomplish in the week, month, year...

Someone I know through CodeReview once said in a blog of his that you shouldn't try to eat an entire elephant without cutting it into pieces, so what I have decided is that I should pick some things that I want to accomplish and then give my self some short term goals, kind of a top down approach for the planning phase.

I think that the first thing that needs to happen is that I need to find out what languages are the ones that are going to further my love and enjoyment of programming as well as give me a future in the field of web and application development.

The list I have so far in my head

• AngularJS
• Python
• Ruby
• Java

I already have a working knowledge of

• C#
• JavaScript
• VB
• .NET
• OOP

I am thinking that I might want to learn some procedural programming as well maybe

• BASIC
• ALGOL sounds like fun as well 

I would also like to learn LOGO (KTurtle)a bit better, I have played with it off and on since I was a child and would love to be able to teach some new youngsters how to code in it as well.

This is a good start I think, I can now take these and order them by degree of some random value to myself or to furthering my career or ... whatever value.

1. AngularJS
2. Ruby
3. Python
4. Java
5. C#/VB/.NET (better working knowledge)
6. JavaScript (better working knowledge)
7. Other JavaScript frameworks

Now I have a rough game plan of what I want to do for the year, what goals I might want to achieve and what goals I might want to table until a later date.  I can break these down into pieces or sections of learning like someone would do for a college degree or something like that.

One thing that I need to keep in mind is that I need to be able to pull from knowledge different designs for creating smaller pieces that make the entire application function the way that I want it to function and to make it efficient, I would definitely be on the look out for programming logic and design principles, I might even create a web search that I could do at least once a week to find articles about different techniques for creating the most efficient applications or sub procedures or whatever.

I am going to add into this list with things like

• Programming Logic
• Programming Design

I would also add things to the list like

• BootStrap
• CSS3
• HTML5

Just because I want to keep up on these technologies and to make sure that I am using them appropriately and not acquiring bad habits.  I am sure that I don't know everything about these things.

I think this is where I am going to leave this (for now) and come back to it another day, the more I start thinking of things I want to be incorporated in this list of goals the farther down the rabbit hole I go.

so far this is the list that I have of things that I want to learn/keep learning:

• AngularJS
• Ruby
• Python
• Java
• C#/VB/.NET (better working knowledge)
• JavaScript (better working knowledge)
• Other JavaScript frameworks
• BootStrap
• CSS3
• HTML5
• BASIC
• ALGOL
• KTurtle
• Programming Logic
• Programming Design
• BootStrap
• CSS3
• HTML5

So, what do I do with this list now?

Code Stock

There has been a lot of talk around the office about Code Stock lately because the deadline for submitting talks is Friday at midnight (EDT).

Being a contractor it is not mandatory for me to submit a talk, but that doesn't mean that I can't submit a talk, so I have been throwing around the idea of writing something up.

When I started working here I didn't have very much (read as any) experience with AngularJS, I have worked with jQuery and AJAX a little bit and that has given me a little bit of a boost working with AngularJS, so I decided that I would talk about the process that I have been using in order to catch up to the rest of the developers here.

Check out Code Stock, sounds like it is going to be an awesome get together!

Git

I have learned more Git in the last 2 weeks than I have over the entire course of the time that I have had a GitHub account (@Malachi26), so I am really getting a feel for branching, pushing, pulling, merging, and all the other stuff.  I really like the way that I am able to collaborate.   

The big thing that I like about using Git though, is the way I can "save" my progress at different places in the process of coding something.  I have only had to revert back to the end of the day previous.  

When I shut down for the day I went to close Visual Studios and it asked me to save the solution, and I selected no and the next day I was missing my .sln and one of my .csproj files, so I could not open the solution. 

First I just tried to pull down the .sln file and that's when I found out that I didn't have the .csproj file either, so I went back to the repo and pulled the .csproj I needed from the last commit.  

I love working with Git and think that it is going to be very handy, I think that it is going to give me more freedom and free up some space on all my machines.  I used to have a folder for everything, now I have a master branch and a development branch at the least. 

I just need to remember what I did for the next time, or at least what commands I need to Google.  I am sure it won't be the last time that I make a mistake, but that is what Git is best at, forgiveness.

Not much to say.

Right now I am totally in learning mode, so there isn't really much for me to say other than I am really starting to like AngularJS more and more as I code with it in a real world scenario.

I can also say that being unemployed for any amount of time more than a month, really sucks.  back to work after more than 4 months of being "on vacation" I need to get used to getting up in the morning and also get used to staring at a computer screen for 8+ hours a day without my eyes bleeding.  On the other hand though I am so happy that I am back in the driver's seat, writing code again, oh how I missed the days of writing code non-stop and seeing things being created right in front of me.

now I think that it would advantageous to take the time to write about what I have learned throughout the week, (at least weekly) so that I have a good history of all the things that I am learning through this wonderful journey.  This will take a little bit to get used to actually writing about the things I have learned, but I hope that it will help to get out of the box that I am in and also give others a chance to help further my learning or introduce me better tools for the job.

Please feel free to join me on my journey through coding and learning code and repeating the cycle.


Lyle Hart III

Mobile blogging

I have just installed the Blogger app onto my cell phone, which means that is I'll be more likely to actually blog my random thoughts and ideas. Hopefully I will be able to keep my blogging audience entertained.

Just think of it as a glimpse into a real programmer's life.

Stay tuned....

Never stop Learning

I know a bit of C# and a myriad of other languages, but it results in jack of all trades master of none type of deal for me.  I don't like this at all, it restricts my confidence in my abilities and tries to stop me from treading ahead in projects.   I have pushed myself to start learning again, I chose ASP.NET MVC 5, which is very exciting, I can't wait to start creating websites with MVC.  The big thing that really gets me excited is figuring out a piece of the puzzle that has evaded me or intimidated me for the longest time.

I HAVE CONQUERED A NEW LAND!

I know about the concepts of MVC but never really put it to use because most of the projects that I work on are all legacy applications that were built 10+ years ago, so I couldn't even slip pieces of new technology into them without exerting a bit more time than my project managers would allow.

Now there is another new developer that is also interested in learning MVC, so he started a new project in MVC and everyone is forced to allow us the learning curve needed to make the site functional.

Figuring out the Syntax and how each piece of the puzzle fits together to make the system work is what makes this job satisfying and exciting all at the same time. 

Never stop learning.  Find a book or a good web series or a YouTube video and absorb all the knowledge that you can.

NEVER STOP LEARNING

Old Code, You Wrote

Do you ever go back to code you had written a long time ago and wonder who had written it and why they made it so messy?

I realized that I need to go through my documentation for some of my first projects here (or actually write the documentation).  While looking through the code I have seen things that I really want to change or improve, not that the code I had written before was bad, but the code could be better.  The only problem that I face in doing this is that then the code needs to be tested and compiled and pushed to production, and some of these projects have their feet in many places all at once.

I think that what I am going to do with this code (since I am short on time, most of the time) is to change some of the things that don't change the flow of logic.  I am talking about things like using blocks where before I didn't have them because I didn't know about them when I first wrote the code. 

The rest of the changes I think I might just put into the documentation of the code in a section labeled "Future Updates", or something of the like.  If the change isn't too ​big, but something that I don't want to change and not test for fear of breaking the code, I am going to write a little comment where I would make the change, something that would make complete sense to whoever looks at it, especially me.

​​​​​How do you document code?