Path 2 Developer

Codefighting Progress Okay, first, if you're not following my other blogs, it's worth noting that I'm simultaneously studying to become a pilot. I had no idea the time it's going to take to study everything for the flight school. The amount of information covered is insane and demanding. I'm going to keep both up, but not nearly at the pace I had initially hoped. The actual ground school lasts 12 weeks, and then I take a written test. I'll have to get actual flight time in and eventually take the flight test within 2 years to be a full blown pilot. That being said to iterate how much my focus will be divided briefly, but I will come back more focused to this task at hand. I'm in the 2nd week of the 12 week close so only 2 1/2 months left, then my flying time is only on the weekends. I'll figure out how to do that. As far as the what I've been doing lately, well, I haven't progressed further than the 2nd chapter in the book. In my spare...

Well, I've started my pet project, and I've got a GUI laid out. It's a little slow going, but it should work well in the end, I think. I'm sure there's going to be lots of feedback and many different ways I could do things. Right now, however, I'm limited to what I am learning in the text. As promised, here's the screenshot of my first program. Help? I'm trying not to ask too many people how to write any of the code yet for a couple of reasons. First, I haven't learned any code yet, and I likely won't understand a word of what's being told to me. Second, I'm afraid that what I'll be told I'll understand at that moment, but since I didn't have to work  for it, it won't get burned into my memory like the knowledge I have to seek out. Those long hours searching usually scar you to the point you never want to forget those lessons again. Function Since I don't have too much to show, I'll just explain what th...

I've done my first GUI (graphic user interface). It's a relief to actually have something (although extremely simple) to show that I have at least done something. It's nothing fancy, but hey! It's a window. No code added, no function what-so-ever. But, it's a great start. I think possibly some of the biggest challenges are just coming up with a user interface that works well. The formulas and code in the background can be easier to imagine when you have a physical interface and an idea of how it should work. I had a friend, Joe Kidd, who worked in IT as a developer. I would sketch stuff out for him a lot when it came to designing a part of a program. I had no idea how in the world that could help him, but I see now the benefit behind having that. This is really exciting, to be honest. I'm starting to realize that some of this might be much easier to build than I thought before. In addition to learning to be a better teammate for my company, this could b...

There's a resource page attached to my blog  here . It's where I'm listing all of my tools I'm using to learn to develop code. There are many links on that page to a few different languages, but my focus is on Visual Basic at the moment, so some of those links are going to be stagnant for me. Resources As it stands right now, there are four resources in my arsenal that is teaching me how to write and understand the programming language Visual Basic. 1. Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 Comprehensive book This  book is one a friend had at work laying around in one of her bookcases that she had from a course she took in college a while back. She let me borrow it. I spoke to some others in the office about where to start, and they suggested the book. Many of the developers I work with don't actually have formal 4-year degrees, which surprised me. They simply got certified in some programming languages and began working. I've only made it to the third ...

Where did it all begin? To start, I love computers. I always have. The technology in them and around us is intimidating to say the least. There are many things I would do differently and wish could be done differently. So, why not me? I decided to actually try computers more than what I had in the past. I can troubleshoot and setup computers with some basic concepts. I couldn't build one from scratch, but then again, I never tried. I loved computers, but it was my hobby. I was afraid that if I turned my hobby into a career, I would lose my hobby because I wouldn't want to mess with computers outside of work. Eventually, you just have to get past that and try it out. I had been in Customer Service for over a decade. I excelled quickly in that department, but it became very clear after several efforts that I was simply not going to move forward in that department. Though I had advanced most of their technology from the first year I was there, created and wrote several poli...