Strategy to learn new programming language / new technology

Hello everyone,

yesterday things were quite surprising, so my toughts were not coordinated, thus I would like to make it up to you today.

The topic is clear and it is really exciting, why ? Because that’s what I did as a student for a couple of years.

I will not talk about programming languages, since it is too specific and it depends on the language and what you want to use it for and what you want to achieve learning it.

So, let’s talk about learning new technologies, more specifically A new technology in 3 months. To be quite clear here, the 3 months period is arbitrary and they represent my pace of learning, so depending on the person , the 3 months could be 1 month, 6 weeks , 6 months or 1 year. So don’t hold me responsible for a different outcome than the announced 3 months.

OK, let’s dive in. For example, you cant to learn basic thermodynamics: First, find some lecture transcripts (mitopencourseware is your friend, if you’re not a student). Lecture transcripts should not take you more than 3 weeks to read and make notes. As you will notice, in those transcripts, the material goes from basic logical definitions and relations to complicated equations.

That’s why there is a second part to the strategy: Literature. Every chapter has recommended literature. You can’t read everything, so you need to pick a couple of books for the whole subject: more than 3 books is excessive and less than 2 might leave you with some basic weaknesses.

Finally, if you want to master the subject completely, you need to find a way to apply your knowledge. It is a must. To come back to our example, if you don’t practice what you learnd, you will never fully understand what thermodynamical equations really mean.

Ok, this blog entry was longer than usual. Hope you had fun reading it.

See you tomorrow,

bye bye