My Day and My Plan
Dec. 11th, 2005 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebOne thing I love about this town is that right after we get some real winter weather, Mother Nature always apologizes. Temperatures were in the sixties much of the day today.
Perfect for helping my sister move. I like hauling boxes around to help people move. (I admit that this is partly because I can quit at any time.) I didn't help with anything really heavy today. Quantity, not quality.
Today we saw the latest "Pride and Prejudice" movie. All the people who saw the miniseries like to say that the movie compares unfavorably. The movie is shorter and couldn't get all the subplots in. But some of those subplots were annoying anyway. However, the movie completely captured Lizzie's decision on whether and whom to marry in a way that the miniseries did not. Mr. Wickham is charming and Mr. Darcy is icky, just as they should be. Then you change your mind as Lizzy does. Very nicely done.
I also liked that people in the theatre were laughing in the right places. When the humor is all deadpan, or accompanied at most by a mere twinkle of the eye, you have to be paying attention to notice the humor. And people were.
In boring work news, I've figured out that one of the reasons I'm having trouble with this JavaScript class is that there is an unstated assumption that we have already programmed in some other language. I haven't done any programming since 1982, and I didn't do much then. For example, if I wanted to add one to a variable back then, I would type something like "x = x + 1." Nowadays everyone types "x++" instead. So either these unary methods were uncommon back then or I never got to them. Whichever is the case, I don't have the proper background.
So I've decided that I need to go back and really learn programming concepts in conjunction with learning the JavaScript language, and I don't see any good resources for doing those two things at the same time. So I'm going to be using sources like Learn to Program: A Tutorial for the Future Programmer, which is great (so far anyway), except that it's taught using Ruby, a completely different programming language which I do not want to learn.
So then I decided I need to to write a book on how to learn JavaScript for people who are experts at HTML but know nothing about programming. Writing a book will force me to get a good grip on the material; really it will just be like taking very good notes. And if I actually finish the book, I can try to sell it, and that would be good.
And if I tell people I'm doing this, and then they tell me there's already such a book, then I will go get that book. So I win either way. I'd rather there be a book already. There should be such a book already since there would be such a large audience for it.
And since languages disappear from my head after I don't look at them for a while, I'm going to try to work on this a little every day or every other day, sort of like with NaNoWriMo, except with less craziness and no time off from work.
This is not actually quite as exciting to me as it sounds. I have been resisting learning programming successfully for a quarter of a century. Now I am just another quitter.
Perfect for helping my sister move. I like hauling boxes around to help people move. (I admit that this is partly because I can quit at any time.) I didn't help with anything really heavy today. Quantity, not quality.
Today we saw the latest "Pride and Prejudice" movie. All the people who saw the miniseries like to say that the movie compares unfavorably. The movie is shorter and couldn't get all the subplots in. But some of those subplots were annoying anyway. However, the movie completely captured Lizzie's decision on whether and whom to marry in a way that the miniseries did not. Mr. Wickham is charming and Mr. Darcy is icky, just as they should be. Then you change your mind as Lizzy does. Very nicely done.
I also liked that people in the theatre were laughing in the right places. When the humor is all deadpan, or accompanied at most by a mere twinkle of the eye, you have to be paying attention to notice the humor. And people were.
In boring work news, I've figured out that one of the reasons I'm having trouble with this JavaScript class is that there is an unstated assumption that we have already programmed in some other language. I haven't done any programming since 1982, and I didn't do much then. For example, if I wanted to add one to a variable back then, I would type something like "x = x + 1." Nowadays everyone types "x++" instead. So either these unary methods were uncommon back then or I never got to them. Whichever is the case, I don't have the proper background.
So I've decided that I need to go back and really learn programming concepts in conjunction with learning the JavaScript language, and I don't see any good resources for doing those two things at the same time. So I'm going to be using sources like Learn to Program: A Tutorial for the Future Programmer, which is great (so far anyway), except that it's taught using Ruby, a completely different programming language which I do not want to learn.
So then I decided I need to to write a book on how to learn JavaScript for people who are experts at HTML but know nothing about programming. Writing a book will force me to get a good grip on the material; really it will just be like taking very good notes. And if I actually finish the book, I can try to sell it, and that would be good.
And if I tell people I'm doing this, and then they tell me there's already such a book, then I will go get that book. So I win either way. I'd rather there be a book already. There should be such a book already since there would be such a large audience for it.
And since languages disappear from my head after I don't look at them for a while, I'm going to try to work on this a little every day or every other day, sort of like with NaNoWriMo, except with less craziness and no time off from work.
This is not actually quite as exciting to me as it sounds. I have been resisting learning programming successfully for a quarter of a century. Now I am just another quitter.
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no subject
on 2005-12-11 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-12-11 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-12-12 06:14 am (UTC)