I thought this was pretty cool, and very well presented.
Category: Self Improvement
Books I Want To Read in 2014
My current reading list for 2014:
- The Little Black Book for Managers: How to Maximize Your Key Management Moments of Power by John Cross, Rafael Gomez, & Kevin Money.
- Pitcairn Island, the Bounty Mutineers and Their Descendants: A History by Robert W. Kirk.
- Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross.
- Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh.
- The Day the Earth Caved In: An American Mining Tragedy by Joan Quigley.
- What You See Is What You Get by Alan Sugar.
- IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black
- Patrick Pearse: The Triumph of Failure by Ruth Dudley Edwards.
What to learn next?
I’ve been a bit all over the place recently in terms of what to learn next. The main languages I’m proficient in at the moment are C#, and web programming languages like PHP. (Aside: If I hear one more person refer to HTML as a programming language I may get angry). The thing about the software industry is that something you spend a long time mastering may be obsolete in 5 years. If you’re not continuously learning, you can fall behind very fast.
Over the next 6 months to 1 year, I’ve decided to focus on certain technologies/areas in an effort to become someway proficient in them.
I’ve decided on:
- C++ – The expert consensus is that this will not be replaced in the next 50 years.
- Mobile Development – But I’m unsure of which platform. iOS development interests me as I own an iPhone, but it has the extra added learning curve of Objective C, of which I have little experience. I’m thinking Android or Windows Phone 7 (should it be accepted by the masses), since I’m familiar with both Java and C#.
- ‘Newer’ Microsoft technologies such as Silverlight, WPF etc. from the last few years that I haven’t looked at.
I feel if I apply myself I can certainly become proficient in the above areas in less than a year. By ‘proficient’ I mean be able to develop applications from the ground up as I can do in C# at the moment, not ‘master’. I’m fully aware that languages like C++ take thousands of hours to learn and many years of hands on experience to fully master.
No doubt I’ll be posting here of my experiences learning each.
8 Secrets to Success in 3 minutes
A great TED talk outlining the 8 secrets to success condensed into 3 minutes!
I especially like the “you’ve got to perist through CRAP” point, with CRAP being:
- Criticism
- Rejection
- Assholes
- Pressure
The ‘C’ books are out again…
Three times in the last two years I’ve attempted to become good at programming in the C/C++ programming languages, and three times I’ve either stopped half way through a book/online course, or failed to even start with any momentum.
But, I’ve dug out the books again and am determined to succeed this time. Having come from a Java background, then moving to working with some projects in C#, it seems the natural progression. I’m starting with ‘C in 21 days’, which I estimate should take about two weeks, (as I think I can ignore the ‘What is a variable/array/string?’ sections…). I also just purchased ‘Accelerated C++’ by Andrew Koenig, which I intend to read next. Maybe I’ll post a review here later.
Nothing annoys me more than looking at C or C++ code and not understanding what’s going on…