Comments from a non programmer who keeps meaning to learn:
I like that your first step is 5-10 hours, feels much more realistic than those guides that say you can become a master in ten seconds and makes me trust you.
I like that the second step includes explanation of things like github, I keep being linked to it but have no idea how to extract anything useful from the website.
I have now worked out that "rails" is short for "ruby on rails" and is a "web application framework" not a programming language.
I barely understand the rest, but I like the periodic reminders to reevaluate your priorities. Makes for a nice change from the programming evangelists.
I'll try and work my way through your recommendations and let you know how it goes.
Never really got anywhere. Its long enough ago that I don't really remember why, but think I generally found it unengaging. Have periodically tried to teach myself programming through different methods since then but none have stuck. This probably speaks to the difficulty of learning new skills when you have limited time/energy resources, and no specific motivation, more than anything else. (Have had similar difficulties with language learning, but got past them due to short term practical benefits, and devoting specific time to the task).
I've recently seen a lot of interest in people who are looking to learn programming. So I put together a quick guide with lots of help from other people: http://everydayutilitarian.com/essays/learn-code
Let me know (via comments here or email - peter@peterhurford.com) if you try this guide, so I can get feedback on how it goes for you.
Also, feel free to also reach out to me with comments on how to improve the guide – I’m still relatively new to programming myself and have not yet implemented all these steps personally. I'd cross-post it here, but I want to keep the document up-to-date and it would be much easier to do that in just one place.