Sometimes I feel like I may be pushing myself along a little too quickly with computer programming. For instance, I'm in the process of learning VB.NET and have gotten to where I feel like I can start trying a few things, so I decided to look at some of the code for our custom tools here at work. They kind of make sense to me, but I don't even know how to begin figuring out what objects I need to reference. I work in Geographic Information Systems the software we use (ArcGIS) has an object model that is just insane. Here's the ArcObjects model if anyone wants to take a look: http://edndoc.esri.com/arcobjects/9....esktopOMDs.pdf

All of our stuff is done in VB.NET so I was trying to find some sort of documentation to at least get me started. It was then that I realized that I don't have the background yet to even understand the jargon they use to explain things. For instance, I don't know what "hashing" is. I know these are basic concepts for anyone in computer science, but I haven't had that many CS courses. Does someone have to know all the theory to be able to program or is it just something that you can learn on your own through experience? Does it take a long time to get to the point where you can just jump right in and do exactly what you want?

I'm thinking that the learning curve for this stuff is a lot higher than I expected and that it will take awhile to get the hang of it. I feel like I should be able to just jump right in but all that's done is made me get frustrated and want to give up. Kind of the, "I'm too stupid to do this" feeling. It's overwhelming at times.

Jread,

Chill fella you are most definitely *NOT* alone, it's like that for heaps of us. Sometimes I convince myself I'm in completely the wrong job and a total programming fake (usually after looking at an object model like yours he he) I only have the vaguest idea what a hash table is myself, but i'm not worried I know I can find out all about it one day.

You do have to be aware of the low level stuff, there are a million layers of flakey abstraction between the bits floating around in the hardware and your high level OOP code. It is a steep learning curve but stick with it you will get a little further each day. You will have days -weeks even - when you will feel you have achieved nothing....

Oh I'm getting kicked out of the office I'll do more tomorrow.

>I'm thinking that the learning curve for this stuff is a lot higher than I expected
That's very likely.

>I feel like I should be able to just jump right in
After a couple of years of learning you can jump right in and still be overwhelmed. There's really no such thing as a comfort zone when it comes to real world programming.

And I'm exceedingly curious as to whether you got permission to make public internal company documents, and what the penalty to you would be if you don't have such permission and your boss found out...

What are you talking about?

I recently got hired as a .NET programmer and compared to C++ and Java, it's like a walk in the park. .NET languages are extremelly easy, in my opinion. If I can do it, anyone can do it. You just have to personally want to make it as a programmer.

Server crash, I seem to follow you around daniweb and post after you. But I hope and believe your right. I believe that anyone is capable if they really try, I hope your right cause thats what I want to learn next, programming,

some on my own, but I'd like to go back to school for it when my company picks up the tab

I can't say I've disagreed with you so far.

If you're just starting out then don't go for .NET right away and stay away from tools that will make you lazy until you actually get a good feel for doing it without the added cushion.

What tools???

IDE's where you can just drag n drop controls on a form type stuff like VIsual Studio. The're great but they hide stuff, it takes care of all the boring crap like include paths and compiler optimisation switches, and generates code in the background. It's not a problem if you know what it's hiding, but if you don't the day it lets you down you're gonna be stuffed. That's why so many people recommend starting with C or C++ because you learn about bits and compilers and how memory is laid out and important stuff like that, so then when you go for the big tools and a freek mouse accident somehow wipes out your classpath you know why the darn thing refuses to build and you can straighten it out.