It’s just another language…
Its 8.03 on a Monday morning and our wonderfully patient coding bootcamp instructor David has just said something along the lines of: “The method, or the function, belongs to the object belongs to the attribute, belongs to the class, belongs to thevariable, belongs to the instance…..”
In my head a record scratches, complete silence, crickets chirp, I think “What am I doing here? This is highly specialized jargon, some seriously esoteric concepts…my brain hurts….”
I’ll tell you what I’m doing here, I’m learning a skill to better myself personally and professionally along with my fellow full-time coding students. In 2 short weeks, we have learned a mind-boggling amount of information and today we’re continuing with Ruby: Hashes and Classes
And you know what? I’m hanging in there. I felt like the only person here with no prior experience apart from basic skills (do email and ppt count as being computer literate?) but I’m finding that it’s pretty similar to another language I learned: French.
How so? Well it’s frustrating, you feel like a kid, you’re lost, you’re vulnerable, and as an adult it’s really hard to jump into an activity you know you are going to suck at:
“On my fifth trip to France I limited myself to the words and phrases that people actually use…I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. “Is thems the thoughts of cows?” I’d ask the butcher, pointing to the calves’ brains displayed in the front window. “I want me some lamb chop with handles on ’em.”
― David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
I moved to France in 2006 to travel, work, and live. I survived being in a foreign land and learned the language so well that today French speakers don’t know I’m foreign (and they never guess American). So I know I can do this. Luckily I’ve got some amazing instructors on my side.
Today is frustrating but these guys are so patient with me, (@Ham @David: Thank you) Any time I have a “Whoa, what??” moment, (like just now when my brain essentially says “If I have to retain one more word/rule, I will explode”), they ever so kindly and with no attitude or hint of condescension will explain the logic in a different way. For example, David here is drawing me a visualization of how to understand classes. I love this guy.
The journey continues… Thank you TTS team!
