Shonzilla, a pattern-seeking animal

This picture pretty much sums up what I ever thought about all those “Teach yourself X in Y days” books.

Typically, X is any programming language that someone, other than your relatives, would give you money in return for something useful to them made using this programming language.

Y < 3 years spent of real projects for real customers, not your relatives.

Learning to learn a programming language is completely pointless if you’re not actually making software for someone who uses it.

I would dare to make a metaphor, which was almost certainly used before, that making software is similar to learning to cook. “Making yourself eggs&bacon in 5 minutes” is not much of a feat - everyone can do it when one’s too hungry, desperate or clueless. Getting to a point to cook food that many if not all people enjoy requires dedication and years, sometimes even decades. That explains why a great majority of us cook food for up to four-five people, usually just one or two. Winning a Michelin star is a feat work of respect of restaurant chef’s cooking skills, which also indicates that you cannot teach yourself to be a rockstar programmer. On the other hand, imagine learning to be a chef or becoming passionate about cooking just by reading, say, all Jamie Oliver books.

Insert yourself your favorite Yoda or Matrix quote here… ;-)

Next time you better reach for “X for idiots” book series. They’re at least not lying you.

The comic above comes from AbstruseGoose hinted by a BBS acquaintance back then and University colleague Nebojša, who’s using C++ at Google on a daily basis.

The last XKCD rally cracks me up.

Having read this I figured it’s time to get out and breath some fresh air.

[via XKCD]