Wise words, mate

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Does anyone have any wise words for someone at the very beginning of an extremely long learning curve?

Expect to be in a constant state of learning for the rest of your life.

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Observations about the nature of programming, how long it took you to learn whatever you learned.

It really depends on the language, C is easy to learn and takes a lifetime to truly master. C++ is harder to learn, but easier to use effectively sooner. Java is like C++ except easier and it's easier to learn after you learn C++. It all depends on what you already know and what you're willing to put into it. For me it took about three weeks before I really got the hang of C and fell in love with it.

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Good courses/books?

For C you'd do well to get 'The C programming language', it was written by the creator of C and you'll use it a LOT. For beginning C++ I've found that Practcal C++ is very easy to understand and grasp the concepts if you have no idea what you're doing.

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Whats the best way to hone those skills?

Use it, plain and simple. The more you write code, the easier and better it gets. And you'll find that when you don't have as many bugs the first time around it also gets fun :)

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What are the growth areas of programming?

I'm assuming you mean things past the syntax and correctness of your code. The main growth area is problem solving, you learn to solve a problem with fewer lines and more elegant solutions. The most fun I have in coding is trying to find the most elegant solution to my problem, but only after I have it working first. ;)

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What do you 'do' with C?

The sky is the limit, you can write your own compiler, your own operating system, games, 3d graphics applications, the list just goes on and on. C is by far the most powerful language I know. Some might say C++ is more powerful, and it probably is, but it's not as widely accepted as C currently.

-Prelude