Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 23:07:25 -0500 From: Damien Tougas <damien@carroll.com> To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Subject: Looking for Yoda Message-ID: <20010310230724.A292@sprig.tougas.net>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
I am in the process of learning C programming, but I seem to running up against a bit of a problem: I have nothing to program. I have books, tried the exercises, but always with the same result. I get bored very quickly, the exercises don't interest me much at all. I have programming experience in a variety of languages, including Fortran, Perl, Bourne shell, PHP, as well as some SQL programming experience. The way I was able to learn those was out of necessity; I had a project that I needed to do, so I learned as I worked on the project. I would start on the easier parts first, then grow on to the more complex ones as my skills improved. I guess one might question why I am wasting my time if I have nothing to program that interests me. Well, there are actually several reasons. First of all, I am a full time FreeBSD systems administrator, and I am finding that my lack of C programming knowledge is probably the biggest obstacle in my path right now. My job does not actually require me to do C programming, but I can't count how many times I could have solved a problem had I the proper programming experience. Secondly, I love programming. This reason is quite self explanatory. Thirdly, I want to understand FreeBSD at a deeper level, and perhaps one day even contribute to the project in some meaningful way. What I think I need is a mentor. Someone who is experienced, working on an interesting project (preferably FreeBSD related), and who is obviously willing to take the time to work with someone such as myself. Someone who could give me a task, and check over my work along the way; not hand holding, just guidance. I know that there are a million different projects at sourceforge, but the tough part is actually finding someone to work with in that sort of relationship. Are there any mentors out there? Are there other approaches out there that people have taken that they have found successful? -- Damien Tougas Systems Administrator Carroll-Net, Inc. http://www.carroll.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20010310230724.A292>