Re^3: How to start. || Ramblings of a confused mind.

[tilly]

If you take that attitude, then you'll never start coding.

Besides, if you keep reading you'll run into a lot of apparently (or actually!) contradictory information. There is no way to sort this out without having an experience base of your own to draw from. And other things that you'll read you will likewise not understand unless you have some experience under your belt. Finally all of the theory in the world does no good unless it becomes reflex, which again takes practice.

So there is a chicken and egg problem here, you don't want to start until you have the skills, but you cannot develop the skills unless you start.

The answer is to do all things at once. Be aware of what you don't know or don't know that well, and proceed. Be sure to re-evaluate periodically. Continue to learn, practice, read and grow. At some point this is the only way that I know to learn a practical skill.

However, if you can, it is good to make the first few projects that you do be things which are unimportant, so the inevitable mistakes are not a big deal.