Teach yourself programming in...how long?

Great article here - the premise is that all the “Teach yourself [something] in 21 days“ books which have proliferated in the past 10 years are all bogus. In fact, most skills (not just programming) take about 10 years to master.

 

3 Comments

  • Some people take things too seriously. I don't think anyone, publishers, authors or readers, has the expectation of being a Jedi master in [your programming platform here] in 21 days. It's just a clever marketing way to say, "We'll give you the basics and be as straight-forward as we can about it because you're really busy and important."

  • Does this mean that we should "JUST" start becoming masters of Windows 95? Are you also suggesting that due to the rate of change in our industry there are no experts?



    I've read that if you take One hour per week to study a subject you will become an expert in 4 years. Along that line - if you take 10 hours a week (probably about average for most type A personalities) then you can achieve the same goal in about 5 months. What I think needs to be quantified is what in fact you are teachning yourself in 21 days. If you are teaching yourself the fundamanetals of something (the very basics of C# for example) - this "may" be achievable provided that within that 21 days you spend at least 1 hour per day.



    I don't think I've ever seen "Become an EXPERT .NET Architect from Scratch" in 21 days before.



    Just my 2cents

  • This is how I would go about it:



    You spent an hour a day studying programming for 21 days? Great. You put in 21 HOURS, not DAYS. And that's less than a day's workload.



    (If you do the math, you'll be spending 21th day's worth of studying on your 441st day of studying, if you keep the one-hour-a-day regime. And that 441 days don't count the holidays and sundays. If you were to add these in, it's probably going to take at least 2 years.)

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