Lately, I've been feeling a little overwhelmed. I pay $25 a month for a subscription to lynda.com. It's an amazing site, but at the same time, I feel like I'm on a time limit. I can't just go on studying forever, because that's a lot of money to put out.
I'm taking a beginner's course in PHP and MySQL, and it's not as easy to absorb as I'm used to. When I was learning HTML5, it was easier than plain old HTML or XHTML. Amazing. CSS was a joke. It took me about 2 weeks before I had a good feel for it. But PHP makes me feel kind of stupid. I can and am learning it. Pretty well, too, I think. But, I can't just read or watch a video, and voila! I know PHP! No. It's more like, "Let me watch this again to see if I can figure out what he's talking about." And usually that does the trick. But tomorrow, I'll recognize it, but I can't just start typing it and be error free.
Perhaps it's not my pocket, but my ego, that's suffering here. MySQL isn't so bad, though. That made me feel a little better. But being formally uneducated, I have to admit that it makes me insecure. I didn't get to 10th grade, so I often feel ignorant. I'm educating myself now, but I doubt I'll ever be comfortable when I don't know every last thing about my chosen expertise. And with programming, I doubt that you CAN know every single last thing about any given language. Dunno. Asi son las cosas.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Friday, February 11, 2011
Feeling Judgemental
Today, I was reading about how the IT industry is bad for women for a variety of reasons. But, I was thinking about how, in reality, it probably comes back to women not being able to handle the atmosphere. I'm not condoning sexism, but at the same time, you have to be able to have a thick skin and a sense of humor.
I don't know, because I've never programmed professionally, but I have lived in a 3rd world, latino country in the Caribbean, and I'll tell you that down there, they don't even pretend that they respect you. I chose not to live in that situation (after 3 1/2 years), but I think I'm pretty much immune to it. I'm not a stereotypical wife. If it bothers them, then it's their problem. Whatevs.
Also, I don't think like a normal woman. Or any other normal human, for that matter. My OCD comes in very handy with coding. Instead of going through every hair in a section of my head and snipping off split ends, one by one (which is mad lame), I can spend my time doing something constructive. Not many people have the focus that I do. Lucky for them.
But back to my point, which is that you either have it or you don't. Many of the best are not the most intelligent, but the most diligent. If men making "barefoot and pregnant" jokes is enough to send you packing, then you aren't going to get far in any career, anyway. Don't get your panties in a bunch. Just roll your eyes and move on, sister. No man is worth ruining your mascara with tears. And definately not some IT geek, ok?. :-P Wear your high heels with pride, because no man that I know could even balance in your shoes, let alone walk a mile.
Keep on keepin' on. Hasta manana.
I don't know, because I've never programmed professionally, but I have lived in a 3rd world, latino country in the Caribbean, and I'll tell you that down there, they don't even pretend that they respect you. I chose not to live in that situation (after 3 1/2 years), but I think I'm pretty much immune to it. I'm not a stereotypical wife. If it bothers them, then it's their problem. Whatevs.
Also, I don't think like a normal woman. Or any other normal human, for that matter. My OCD comes in very handy with coding. Instead of going through every hair in a section of my head and snipping off split ends, one by one (which is mad lame), I can spend my time doing something constructive. Not many people have the focus that I do. Lucky for them.
But back to my point, which is that you either have it or you don't. Many of the best are not the most intelligent, but the most diligent. If men making "barefoot and pregnant" jokes is enough to send you packing, then you aren't going to get far in any career, anyway. Don't get your panties in a bunch. Just roll your eyes and move on, sister. No man is worth ruining your mascara with tears. And definately not some IT geek, ok?. :-P Wear your high heels with pride, because no man that I know could even balance in your shoes, let alone walk a mile.
Keep on keepin' on. Hasta manana.
I've Arrived!
I decided to make my background pink, although I'm in fear of chasing all the men away from here. My poor husband nearly goes into seizures every time he uses my computer because my browser is hot pink and covered in hearts. :-P
Anyway, today, I downloaded Firefox 4 Beta. I really like it's capabilities (especially with CSS3), but it keeps crashing on me. Has anyone else had this problem? I wish more things were compatible with it. I miss my Firebug. At LEAST my web developer toolbar still works
Finally, I personalized my computer. Made my touchpad scroll and made my mouse invert the color behind it. And don't knock my touchpad. I just prefer it. I have a wireless mouse, but it seems that my daughter makes it magically disappear every time I leave my computer unattended.
I didn't realize how much you could do to make your computer AWESOME. I have an old Latitude from Dell, so I just assumed that I was screwed. However, I'm pleasantly surprised. When I get my taxes back, I'm getting a new computer and I'm definitely getting another Dell. I love my clunker, though, and I'm already suffering from separation anxiety. With my external hard-drive, I could easily jump on another computer (and I often do. Don't tell.), but it's become almost an extension of my personality. I should name her.
I also went through the add-ons for Komodo Edit and started exploring it's capabilities. I'm pretty impressed. I used to use Notepad++, but I really think I prefer Komodo much more. I like the Project options, where you can import folders and have them there, just waiting in a list where it has all of your projects, under your regular file toolbar. And then your project files pop up right there in that section of the toolbar.
And you can just click on the section that you want to change the color of when you are personalizing the syntax highlighting, which is so much easier than sifting through each option and trying to figure out how to color it. It has a big visual example. No CSS example, though, which I found a bit annoying, but not a big deal. Under View, you can make your font larger and it has split screen. I'm hooked.
It even has HTML5.
Alright, my husband wants to go to sleep, so I'm off. See you tomorrow. Peace.
Anyway, today, I downloaded Firefox 4 Beta. I really like it's capabilities (especially with CSS3), but it keeps crashing on me. Has anyone else had this problem? I wish more things were compatible with it. I miss my Firebug. At LEAST my web developer toolbar still works
Finally, I personalized my computer. Made my touchpad scroll and made my mouse invert the color behind it. And don't knock my touchpad. I just prefer it. I have a wireless mouse, but it seems that my daughter makes it magically disappear every time I leave my computer unattended.
I didn't realize how much you could do to make your computer AWESOME. I have an old Latitude from Dell, so I just assumed that I was screwed. However, I'm pleasantly surprised. When I get my taxes back, I'm getting a new computer and I'm definitely getting another Dell. I love my clunker, though, and I'm already suffering from separation anxiety. With my external hard-drive, I could easily jump on another computer (and I often do. Don't tell.), but it's become almost an extension of my personality. I should name her.
I also went through the add-ons for Komodo Edit and started exploring it's capabilities. I'm pretty impressed. I used to use Notepad++, but I really think I prefer Komodo much more. I like the Project options, where you can import folders and have them there, just waiting in a list where it has all of your projects, under your regular file toolbar. And then your project files pop up right there in that section of the toolbar.
And you can just click on the section that you want to change the color of when you are personalizing the syntax highlighting, which is so much easier than sifting through each option and trying to figure out how to color it. It has a big visual example. No CSS example, though, which I found a bit annoying, but not a big deal. Under View, you can make your font larger and it has split screen. I'm hooked.
It even has HTML5.
Alright, my husband wants to go to sleep, so I'm off. See you tomorrow. Peace.
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