

Vita brevis", which is part of the longer quotation "Ars longa, vitaīrevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudiciumĭifficile", which in English renders as "Life is short, craft 400BC) is known for the excerpt "ars longa, Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) said "Excellence in any department can beĪttained only by the labor of a lifetime it is not to be purchased atĪ lesser price." And Chaucer (1340-1400) complained "the lyf so short, the craft Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) had another metric: "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." (He didn'tĪnticipate that with digital cameras, some people can reach that mark in a week.) Gladwell has popularized the idea, although he concentrates on 10,000 hours, not 10 years. String of #1 hits and an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964.īut they had been playing small clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg sinceġ957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first greatĬritical success, Sgt. InĪnother genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene with a Real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, tookġ3 more years before he began to produce world-class music.

With a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it,Īnalyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correctingĪny mistakes. Practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself Operation, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in Takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety ofĪreas, including chess playing, music composition, telegraph in 24 Hours: Unfortunately, this is not enough, as the next.
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Learning how to program you're learning to accomplish that task. Like JavaScript or Processing) because you need to interface with anĮxisting tool to accomplish a specific task. That you have to learn a tiny bit of C++ (or more likely, something Think about programming, is not worth knowing". Perlis once said: "A language that doesn't affect the way you In short, if you were, say, aīasic programmer, you could learn to write programs in the style ofīasic using C++ syntax, but you couldn't learn what C++ isĪctually good (and bad) for. Learn much about how to use the language. C++: In 24 hours you might be able to learn some of the syntax ofĬ++ (if you already know another language), but you couldn't.Superficial familiarity, not a deep understanding. Understand what it is like to live in a C++ environment. You won't have time to work with an experienced programmer and Significant programs, and learn from your successes and failures with Teach Yourself: In 24 hours you won't have time to write several.Let's analyze what a title like Teach Yourself C++ in 24 Hours Idiots can learn it in 21 days,Įven if they are dummies." The Abtruse Goose comic also had their take. Give a nod to this trend in their book How to Design Programs, when they say

The conclusion is that either people are in a big rush to learnĪbout programming, or that programming is somehow fabulously easier to Similar results come from replacing "teach yourself" with "learn" or "hours" with "days." Of the top ten, nine are programming books (the other is about bookkeeping). Yourself, hours, since: 2000 and found 512 such books. The Amazon advanced search for [ title: teach, SQL, Ruby, Algorithms, and so on in a few days or hours. In 24 Hours alongside endless variations offering to teach C, Walk into any bookstore, and you'll see how to Teach Yourself Java Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years Peter Norvig
