segmentation fault

Josh Holloway on his new beginnings.

For Josh: Good luck! I hope this new start gets you someplace fun.

Aside from that, since in a lot of ways I suffer from the same start-and-stop habits, I thought I’d share a thought or two.

1) The “Beginning X Programming” books are nice work, I read the iPhone variant and it was useful in bits. However, it was a lot less useful to me than Hillegass’ “Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X”, which I cannot recommend highly enough. The latter does a much better job of explaining the magic that goes on with the framework, and for people who tinker and want to understand things, it’s a great resource.

2) I’m also someone who started on programming a little late. What made the difference to me was working on things that I personally wanted. It’s incredibly easy (I find) losing steam on small academic projects for learning. For me, thinking of something I want to actually use is worth more than any other kind of motivation. YMMV, but I wanted to share the thought since a lot of things in your story sounded familiar to me. ;)

3) Perhaps you can consider blogging your progress, especially if there are technical frustrations. Then if you give up early all your readers can berate you for letting them down. Wouldn’t that be swell? :P