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I'd given up programming years ago because I didn't like the Rapid Application Development tools that were available at the time. I know I don't have much artistic or graphic design skills, and this is where the apps were heading. This is no longer the case. For the classes I'm currently taking, I'm running into some problems with computer math. This is not surprising. Math has never been one of my strongest academic areas, and I was always surprised by my ability to maintain a straight C average consistently in High School. However, getting the right answer -- while important to this class, isn't about what the class is about. It's about understanding how to get the right answer. Knowing how to get the right answer will always be more important for IT professionals than finding it. After all, it is finding the answer that IT professionals get paid for.
To get back to the point, I was having a hard time understanding how to convert decimal numbers into hexadecimal numbers. I thought the easiest way to do get the process down was to write a program that did this for me. I thought that since I enjoy using Pascal and I'm familiar with it that I'd download Lazarus, the open-source equivalent of Delphi, and come up with a graphical utility that does this for me. I began writhing.
If you read either of the above paragraphs, you might be surprised that I did not actually write a program that did what I intended. The now-finished program converts a hexadecimal number into decimal, which is a far simpler task. During this time, I spent a great deal learning aspects of Pascal and Object Pascal that I had forgotten. The process of discovery excited me. Oddly enough, I don't feel this way about writing. My feelings about writing my come from simple burnout; I spent years doing content mill work to survive. Content mill work doesn't pay well, isn't exciting, and you have to produce a lot of low-quality output to make a living. There's also trying to please people who aren't always interested in ethically marketing their product.
So, I think I've found a new hobby for a while. It's much more suited to my actual talents than cross-stitch, crochet, or doing silly things like building things out of PVC pipe.
Now, if I can just find a way to get the extremely spoon-draining classes that are designed to get students technical certificates out of the way. I went to bed around 8:30 last night and slept until 8:30 this morning. I'm still tired, even though my Synthroid kicked in shortl;y after I took it this morning.
To get back to the point, I was having a hard time understanding how to convert decimal numbers into hexadecimal numbers. I thought the easiest way to do get the process down was to write a program that did this for me. I thought that since I enjoy using Pascal and I'm familiar with it that I'd download Lazarus, the open-source equivalent of Delphi, and come up with a graphical utility that does this for me. I began writhing.
If you read either of the above paragraphs, you might be surprised that I did not actually write a program that did what I intended. The now-finished program converts a hexadecimal number into decimal, which is a far simpler task. During this time, I spent a great deal learning aspects of Pascal and Object Pascal that I had forgotten. The process of discovery excited me. Oddly enough, I don't feel this way about writing. My feelings about writing my come from simple burnout; I spent years doing content mill work to survive. Content mill work doesn't pay well, isn't exciting, and you have to produce a lot of low-quality output to make a living. There's also trying to please people who aren't always interested in ethically marketing their product.
So, I think I've found a new hobby for a while. It's much more suited to my actual talents than cross-stitch, crochet, or doing silly things like building things out of PVC pipe.
Now, if I can just find a way to get the extremely spoon-draining classes that are designed to get students technical certificates out of the way. I went to bed around 8:30 last night and slept until 8:30 this morning. I'm still tired, even though my Synthroid kicked in shortl;y after I took it this morning.
