This Parrot is Deceased

It's never easy to change, but sometimes we have to.

I've decided, probably for the 9th time in the past 18 years, to try learning Python again. I can already do some silly manipulation, get the drift of arrays, and can print out relevant data points. But I'm not comfortable yet manipulating stuff, driving the scripts, et cetera. Let's say I'm a lot more comfortable tearing up infrastructure with Terraform 1.0 than I am rotating arrays with Python 3.9.

You may ask, why did this choice take so long? For starters, it didn't. I started fooling around with bash, Java, SQL, Ubuntu, and Python while I was still in high school. But we didn't have dedicated computer or programming classes, so I hung out with the ill-advised youths and metalheads that populated Downer's Lab. GBN grads from 2005 to 2009 may remember it fondly. And honestly, I mostly spent my time up there reading The Shadow out of Time. I, too, was ill-advised.

But as my route in life tilted from 'college grad' to 'actual worker,' I figured that it might behoove me to learn a little more about these things. My then-girlfriend, now-wife, got me to finish my Net+ and Sec+ certs within a year of each other. Both of them are now expired, but the opportunities they granted me to grow and learn are with me for life. Kind of like being an Eagle Scout, or a Wisconsinite: it sticks with you long after you stop bringing it up casually.

I'm still struggling to make the interactive development engine do what I want. And it's a slog. But it was the same when I first accidentally typed rm -rf /etc/apt/sources.list . Nothing burned down except for my afternoon as I reinstalled Ubuntu from a flash drive. We learned, and we promised ourselves that we wouldn't do it again.

So I've cracked back open my careworn copy of Automate the Boring Stuff. Man, it is not easy. One goes at this text assuming that they'll just be able to beat all the problems in order. You won't. You'll have to go online, find code, and logically balance everything out in your head. Eventually this will be easier than it is now, just like any trick you can learn.

And, most importantly of all, remember that. You can learn. It's not fun and it takes time, but i can be done.

I'll update this article after I've made some progress on this old learning journey. Wish me luck!