In a discussion on FriendFeed (here, it’s in Italian) I tried to fix how I try to tackle the problem of learning a new technology, be it a language, a database or whatever can be used as a tool to build something else.
I believe that the only way to really learn something is to use it within the context of some real project, for a definition of real that means something that I’d like to build beyond the need of learning the tool. I also often learn new things driven by the need to do something for which the tools I’m currently using are not the best fit (or so I feel).
So I usually fix some target app I’d like (or need) to build and try to drive the learning of the new tools by the usage or process I’m following to reach the target. If the technology is complex and the target is ambitious I try to come up with some easier steps (of increasing difficulty) which can guide me to reach the end of the journey, but even these simpler things I try to do as useful projects.
In 2011 I’ll try to apply this to iPhone development :)
I just found this partial quote written a while ago on evernote:
Usage going to personcentric and presence going to infocentric
People want to aggregate infos from the persons they care about and share infos about themself
So we want to get hold of our identity when posting such that our group will be able to connect with us and will be able to collect…
I’m wondering how it ended and where it came from (i don’t think it’s mine :), but it strikes me as a perfect description of the current app (web and mobile) trends (think instagram or threewords or even facebook)
At every beginning of the year I make a few new year resolutions… I don’t usually succeeded at many of them but nonetheless the exercise of thinking at the things I’d like to do helps me a lot to make them clear and gives me a way to plan a little.
The title of this post is change as this is one aspect of the things I’m going to work on in 2011, starting from trying to write regularly and to do a lot more than I did in 2010 (so here it is the first post on the first day of the year).
I’ll also try new experiments and to deepen my grasp of a few bits and pieces of technology I just observed last year (e.g. I still have to do serious work on Rails 3).
