Old Man Learns to Code

  This is a repeated problem for me. I start too many projects. Finish none. And get bent out of shape over the frustrating comprehension (the meta-cognition ) that this "spread too thin" phenomenon is what is happening. The question is how to gain control over this predicament? How to organize ? How to focus on a fewer number of projects and topics at any one time so that at least some things get finished? (1) The info capture phase -- too easy. I bookmark everything . My bookmarks bar includes the following folders in the following order (left to right):     (1a) Recents -- year and month captures get accumulated here     (1b) Current month -- example: "Feb 2026"     (1c) Current start date of current round of collections -- example: "<-- 02/04"     (1d) Top Topic -- example: "Python" stores marks directed to this topic     (1e) 2ndary Topic example: "Learning"  stores marks directed to Learning about Learning"   ...

  The s ame above  title ( skin the cat-snake ) still applies here, but as a post script edit to this post, I'm going to give it an entirely different spin  than originally planned. Here it goes: My current Py project has evolved into needing a customized data structure . Never mind its specifics.  (Maybe I'll come back to those later.) As I started formulating the ideas / concepts for the customized data structure, I recalled having vaguely seen mention of a thing in Python called " DataClasses " . Had no idea what it actually was. It intrigued me. So I started chasing after it (started searching for clues ) . Turned out to be a popular topic. Many, many tutorials about it. So should I pick just one lecturer? (e.g. Tech with Tim/other (TwT, TwX), Indently , Bro Code , Mosh , Nana , ... or any of the other many free Py tutors ) and stick with that one explainer? No. It so happened that jumping around allowed me to pick up different nuances about the stuff they we...

This  might demonstrate how new ideas can emerge from accidental insights you have about code you've written for a different purpose. So below is a function I wrote called randLE(), which picks a random element from a list and outputs that one randomly selected slice based on a randomly selected index within a range. The output can be of type string, or integer of float. The input list should be of the desired one type: ( Left click on image to enlarge, backspace to return to original size image ) That got me thinking. What if I had an input list that looked like this: [0, 10, 1, 1, 9, 9, 2, 2, 2, 8, 8, 8, 3, 3, 3, 3, 7, 7, 7, 7, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5] In other words the occurrences of the list elements are weighted. There are: six 5's, five each of 4's and 6's, four each of 3's and 7's, three each of 2's and 8's, two each 1's and 9's and one each of 0's and 10's. That tilts the probability distribution...

  By "You've crossed" in the title, I actually mean I have crossed and am genuinely surprised by it. Lately, I have been incorporating TTS ( Text To Speech ) int o  my lesson plan project. In the past, any time I add a new major function such as this, I get a ton of errors when first re-launching the project. And it takes forever to isolate the problems and figure out how to fix them. This time however, other than a few undefined variable errors; it all ran on almost first try. The automated speeches for the lesson points ran right away. Shock and awe. I take it to mean that I've crossed over to a new phase of tackling my growth in Python comprehension. Don't get me wrong. I've still got miles to go . There are dozens of additional areas for me to conquer in Python beyond modules, packages, decorators and such (especially OOPs). But still. The fact that I am more organized by segregating my operations int o  different modules and developing new softw...

We see many a warning about programming students getting caught in "tutorial hell" ,  ... that meaning they watch YouTubes or other tutorials all day but never put hands to keyboard and do some coding on their own, The practice is at times analogized to watching martial art movies on TV  all day but never visiting the dojo to practice and feel what it's like to get your feet swept out from under you. Watching is not learning. The latter requires hands-on practice. But that is not what this post is about. Instead, the current focus terms here are " YouTube " and " Hoarding " per the title.    The YouTube recommendations algorithm is structured to keep you coming back for more and more lest you miss some new but temporary and slipping out of sight good posting. In other words, the need to keep watching feeds on the psychological fear of missing out and on the fear of loss and of detachment. To counter this, some of us (me) bookmark ever...

Every so often my Python code doesn't work even though it "should". I'm relying on somebody's imported module and have no idea how it works. In this case it is the PYTTSX3 module. In theory, if you follow the instructions, it will accept a text string and output the corresponding audio in a male voice or a female voice. (TTS means Text To Speech). I got it to work. But only ONCE. When called the second time ... silence. Apparently I'm not the first to experience this puzzling behavior. Look it up in Reddit, look it up in Google and you see that others also ask, "How do I get  PYTTSX3 to play more than once?" Google's AI (Gemini) offers some suggestions but none of them work. Out of frustration, I try all kinds of permutations including re-initializing the talk engine, time delays, whatever. Out of dumb luck I stumble upon a variation that suddenly makes my old Windows 10 computer perform. Why does this variation work? No idea. ( Click on ...