izzo nizzo's Journal: timing

Now is the best time in history to get into computer programming. The tools and resources that are floating about these days are remarkable. The field is changing in significant ways this year. Perhaps in a couple years time, when these transformations are more finalized and numerous books have been written (about objectice c 2, ruby 2, flex 2, apollo & slingbox, js 2 and perhaps css 2, and eventually rails 2) the pickings-up will be even tastier.

In this world, the power is to those who can wield the web willfully. Programming has never been more important with respect to each individual's prestige and reach. And although it's not always easy to learn this skill from reading web sites, there are a greater selection of these from the past year - because so many have experienced a renewed love of programming through these new technologies.

I have read and learned a lot from blogs, but I also recommend the pragmatic programmer books. If you're new to programming, just download rails and create some resources, you'll have an experiment up and running in minutes. From that platform, you can tie into many of the latest ideas in one line of code: with plugins. This is a great place to learn because you can usually see the results and create useful things. A lot of it is well documented on sites and blogs.

I'll do what I can to make the learning curve for programmers more gentle in the next couple years. Once we drag you into it, a lot of you will be stunned by how gentle it really is, if you choose the right languages. Cocoa, Ruby, Rails.