True Confessions

 CONFESSION: This is not my first attempt at learning to code. It's been years. And now that I'm over 70 years of age, the learning process is a whole different experience. Perhaps my shared frustrations will help others traveling up the learning curve in their later years.
If you are a beginner check out my beginner's help page (here)

Back Story: Back in my 40's, I registered for a college night course to learn what was a new programming language for me. (They called it 'C' if you must know.) 


The class demographics (mainly men) could have been neatly divided into three groups: (1) The 20-30 somethings, (2) The 40-50 ones, and (3) The over-the-hill 65+ elders.


No sooner did the teacher start delving into C language syntax than the hands went up.

Yup. It was the 65+ elders.

"Could you repeat that?" 
"Can you go slower?"
"I don't understand what you mean by that!"

It was clear in that very first class session that we were going to have a crash and burn scenario for our senior citizens. The teacher became agitated.

"I've got a schedule to meet," he said, "We need to move on to the next chapter by next week. Maybe you can see me after class?"

The 20-somethings were unfazed. Soaked it up like sponges. As for myself, at age 40 I was having a bit of a struggle. I knew deep down that I could apply the learning skills of my undergraduate years to play catch up by studying at home and ultimately, I would 'get it'. Not to brag, but yes; in the end I aced the course. Most of the 65+ crowd flunked out.

Flash forward to the present. Somehow I've gotten it into my head that I am going to learn Python in my 70's. And also catch up on that CSS stuff they've added to the old HTML. And maybe pick up on a few new fangled things that somehow slipped by while I was focused on my day job. Am I crazy? Am I too old? Stay tuned and we will find out.

More to Explore

 This section will be built up in the future. The idea is to link to further materials related to the above even if I hadn't myself yet looked at them.  YouTube search results re "Too Old to Code".  Google search results re "How Old is to Old to Learn Coding".  Google search results re "When are you too old to learn new tricks?"
You Tube search result: Learning to code at 70?
Too Old To Learn Programming?




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