New Learning Objective

I watched a very cool episode of Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies and I decided to run an experiment. The story was about this “kid” who ended up becoming a hacker and was involved in bank fraud. The secret service found him and convinced him to team up to take down the ShadowWorks network. This kid was computer literate to say the least, but his path to success came from self learning. What he accomplished, while evil, was amazing.

I am a product of computer self learning too. I cut my teeth on a Commodore 64 back in the 8 bit days. I tinkered quite a bit with PCs and eventually built my own 386sx using old parts from swap meets. I eventually completed college with a degree in Management Information Systems which included courses in programming, database and networking along with the pile of business classes.

Today I am adding a new learning objective for 2024. I’ve been enjoying using AI as you can tell from my pervious posts. Here is the idea. I’m going to use AI to learn how to code Python and I’ll make a piece of software to demonstrate my skills. Then I’m going to enter the gig economy and try to make a little money doing freelance programming. I’m going to stick to the Microsoft platforms though to limit the scope of this project. I’ll add a new category for my posts to cover this topic and I’ll document the progress on my project pages. I asked AI how long it will take. Check out the responses:

• If you want to learn the Python basics, dedicating a few weeks (around 25 hours) can be sufficient. This will give you a solid foundation in the language.
• However, if your goal is to get a job as a Python developer, you’ll need to invest more time. On average, expect to spend at least 700 hours learning Python at an advanced level
• Consistency is key. Aim for daily practice rather than occasional intense study sessions.
• Even 2 hours per day for a few weeks can help you grasp the basics effectively.

So there you have it. I need to allocate a couple of hours each day to this idea. I think I’m going to start with changing my morning habits. Instead of waking naturally, I’ll go back to an alarm at 6am. Then I’ll spend my “wake up” time reading about python and practicing coding.

Here is the project page link, wish me luck.