I came to Chris Pine's Learning to Program because it was recommended on Josh Kemp's blog. I felt since his programming background was similar to mine that this would be a good path to take. On his most famous blog entry he suggests you take on this book in month 2. Given that I had done everything in month 1, this seemed a good thing to start. I read the Amazon reviews and while they were mostly promising, many people seemed to hit a wall around chapter 9-10. In a moment of hubris, I dismissed these souls.
I should not have dismissed them. While Pine remains his usual upbeat self after chapter 8, it feels very much like you got sick and missed a week of math class as the book ramps up to stuff that is really difficult. Early on, Pine dwells on every detail about getting the length of a string. Later on, he tells you to do activities which seem pretty much impossible for a person of my skill level.
While I do appreciate the challenges and looked at the answers as well as typed them in to my editor, this was just too tough. So, I am going to finish reading the book, take from it what I can, and continue on my way.
Would I recommend this book to a total newcomer to code? The first 8 chapters: absolutely! After that: no way! I do credit the book with helping me get familiar with setting up my environment and actually making me start coding in it. However, looking at those chapter 9 and 10 challenges make me feel like a jackass so I will simply read through them instead of soaking my keyboard with salty tears as I fail to get anywhere close to any reasonable solution.
Total hours into Programming: 49 (2 so far today)
My Text game: 1 hour, 51 lines
Chris Pine's Learn to Program ("Finished with Chapter 11" of 14)
Progress on Hartl's Tutorial Ready to start Chapter 3!
Code Academy Points: 535
Code Academy Badges: 57
Code Academy Skills Finished: 2 (Make a Website, Ruby)
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