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Learning Something New

I have found that I'm am getting picky on what I take time to learn these days.  I have only so many hours in a day that I can devote to learning that I've gotten real choosy on what to focus on.

When I decide to learn something new I need to create a "real" product out of it to completely understand what I'm learning.  I tend to focus on products or technology that, for me, I view as having a long term impact on my knowledge, career or interest.  A couple of these technologies have been JSF (Java Server Faces) iPad iOS development.  Very different technologies but the method of my learning is about the same.  It kinda of goes like this:

  1. Get excited.
  2. Try to develop a product with this technology.
  3. Fail (because of my lack of understanding).
  4. Stop and learn why I failed.
  5. Try again and Succeed.

I did this with both JSF and iOS (iPad).  I (falsely) believe that just because I have a zillion years of experience that I can just pick up new technology and plow ahead.  Sure I read the books, articles and sample code and think that I can just fill in the blanks, fill in the philosophy, make it work.  Not os.

It's at step 3 where projects can fail, I can fail.  I just assume that my current knowledge will translate, that I can make it work.  I've seen so many projects "kind of" work at this step but contain fatal flaws that doom it from ever making it a great project.  It can be a difficult pill to swallow to admit to failure at this point.  Place your ego in check, re-group and rethink your mental approach to learning.

For me, I need to swallow my pride and recognize why I first pass failed.  It's probably not the technology (it's so easy to place the blame somewhere else), it's my understanding of the technology.  I need to clean my mental slate and be ignorant of much of what I already know.   Then I can begin again and learn.

Once I perform step 4 I'm ready to embrace what I've learned and provide a real product.   I've shed my mental picture of what I wanted the technology to be for what it really is.   At this point the odds of succeeding are high and my enjoyment level is also high.   Understanding what the technology really is, how to apply to my project and over coming my ego and mental prejudices is my great reward.

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