Start building things.
I've been thinking what I've achieved over the last year and although I felt at the time I was being productive, looking back I realised I've really got nothing to show for all that time I spent reading tutorials, books, blogs, and watching YouTube videos.
It's a disappointing realisation, and to be honest I think the simple reason for it is that it's hard to create a new project to completion. Going through a tutorial is easy and at the time feels great.
My new rules are going to be:
- I'm allowed to use a tutorial to get the basics down.
- If it's a longer tutorial, then go through it without jumping to something new (a bad habit of mine).
- Build a project - it really doesn't matter where the project gets to or if it's finished, just build something and put it on GitHub.
So.. What's my first project going to be this year? Well, I'm currently refreshing myself on C (haven't done any in a while), and then I'm going to build an IRC client. Something reasonably simple but should get me back in the swing of things.
Keep an eye out for my GitHub!