2012: More opportunity for self-improvement.

[ http://www.codecademy.com ] and [ http://www.khanacademy.org ].

Two sites. Different intents, same purpose. One teaches code, while the other teaches subjects from mathematics to art history. Both are worth investigating, for sure. Codecademy and Khan Academy both offer self-paced lessons and well-taught curriculum.

I have two large, multi-part goals that I plan to accomplish by using these two resources:
- Quit writing sloppy code (or reusing functions unnecessarily - no more "frankencode")
- Become proficient in calculus, physics, and understanding today's economy

This, I resolve to do during this new year that we have.

If you're interested, consider also:
This list of free online classes, which has links (at the bottom of the page) to universities' OpenCourseWare - free classes to help you learn just about anything.

On being a developer:

I know very little about programming complex things- how to go about coding something like Minecraft, for instance- where would I even start?

I am good at scripting, though, given that I know commands.

It always amazes me how other folks seem to grasp these complex constructs with ease- Everyone tells me that I could, too, if I spent the time to learn, but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

Simpler things come easily, though- blatantly re-using (read: plagiarizing) code that works and hobbling it together (into some sort of frankencode construct) is what I'm good at. Kinda unethical, I'll admit, but I don't sell or otherwise profit off of these things.

Something about reverse-engineering can be relevant here, too. Reading through code that accomplishes something similar (or a part of what you want to do) grants insight into how what you want to do might work. It also presents the tempting opportunity to copy-and-paste, which is a bad habit of mine that I'm working to break.

More to come on all this later.