Blargh. I had an extremely dumb day today at work. You know those days where nothing sinks in and you just don’t get anything? That was today.
Work has paid for a couple of us to take the official Sun Java training courses (at not-insignificant expense!) and I’ve been working my way through it (this is the very basic don’t-know-any-Java-or-any-object-oriented-programming-at-all one that I’m doing). At the end of each section there’s exercises where you write code to do various things. As I get further into it, they give you less and less hand-holding with the coding, which is understandable. But I was just not understanding it at all. I had to get a co-worker’s help about four times and it still didn’t actually click.
Later on, there was a support case that I took, the customer had provided a backup of his data so we could try to reproduce the problem. I was still struggling to get the backup imported when a co-worker replied to the customer having looked through it all and worked out what the problem was, and what the solution was.
Then at the end of the day I took another support case, and I’d gotten so bogged down from the two things I mentioned above that I was totally doubting myself, and had to double check my answer to the customer with a co-worker because I wasn’t sure.
Plus poor my kungfupolarbear might possibly be losing her job, or possibly not, we don’t know, because the CEO at the company she’s working at is a dick with no actual understanding of what she does.
Ugh. The title of this post says it all.
::love:: Having edited online courses for nearly my entire career, I can tell you, 99.999999999% of them suck, are put together badly, and it’s not the fault of the end learner if they’re going wtf by the end of it. Especially stuff like programming, or math, or anything that involves just as much theory as practice… it’s dead hard to get that cross in a course where you CAN’T ASK THE TEACHER QUESTIONS. It’s absurd to think people can pick up a brand new skill like programming Java that way. I’m glad they paid for you to try it, but I’d not be so hard on myself. We should go to the library and see if they have supplements to help w/the course. Not because you suck, but because the format sucks.
Also, you’ve been largely on your own at work and it’s incredibly impressive that you’ve picked up all this stuff. I’m not being patronising… my brain would have leaked out my ear long before now. You’ve helped me through many self-doubting days, and said how silly I was being, so … stop being silly 🙂 ::love::
Also, damn straight my CEO is a freaking idiot. Sigh.
Aww! Hee. 🙂 ::love::
Also, I generally learn best when I’m working at my own pace, rather than in a classroom sort of situation. It’s not so much lack of teacher as object-oriented programming just not clicking for me. :\
Though Chris was saying that he was in a similar situation, he just wasn’t getting it, then all of a sudden it clicked and all made sense.
Hopefully that point will come soon for me, heh.
i had to program in CDML and learn it from books and stuff for my honours project (way back in 2000 OMG). i tore my hair out for ages, then one day *bang* i got it and i was speedy as after that and it made perfect sense. so yeah i reckon it happens that way. 🙂
Nice. 🙂
I’ve started mucking about with this IRC bot that’s programmed in Java. When I was learning PHP, I learnt a lot faster being able to put what I was learning into actual use. With the Java course I’m doing at work, it’s really not enough to actually sink in just by itself, so I’m thinking the Java bot will be really handy.
Erase and install!
Ha! 😛 I forgot you still lurked around here. How goes Singapore?
It’s warm! Come visit some time. You were brought up in conversation today, about starcraft.
Hahah. I think I’d die if I went to Singapore. Humidity and I do not get along well.