Monthly Archive: May 2013

Learning Cocoa… zzz

cocoa_cupSo finally decided to try Mac OSX programming. This should be easy with some experience in iOS programming. True, true… but also not true.

My first impression while still using X-Code as the main programming tool and objective C as the language. There is still a lot that I’m not familiar with: first so many new options in Interface Builder. This is all nice, but a new list of Outlet names and connections to learn. Second new frameworks & methods to learn. Third the feeling that I don’t know anything at all… guess it’s research & reading time for now.

 

Personal note: I already fell asleep twice while reading a Cocoa Programming book. My mind trying hard to learn the content by heart (new and interesting things and also a repetition of old things). So how would a describe: why I fell a sleep? A psychological explanation called Cognitive Restructuring or just plain old NLP.

The content wasn’t that boring and it didn’t cause my mind to wander off into NeverEverLand….. oeps NLP would make this into:

The content was that boring and it did cause my mind to wander off into NeverEverLand…

So something new then. Ehm the content contains a mixture between old and new information. The new information did catch my interest and attention. But the old one didn’t and made me think of boring old repetition.

The word to look out for is “boring”. Because “old” can and is in someway the new “new”. Vintage is in nowadays. And old can be associated with wise. With age comes wisdom.

To me repetition is a good word and it equals hard work & progress. It’s training, training and training again. Like grinding for XP.

How to reframe “boring”? Boring can’t equal sleep, because I already have my daily dose of caffeine & it’s 13:00 now. The sun is shining, certainly not night time & bed time. So what about distractions? What are the things that causes my mind to wander off? If I picture my mind as a processor, then a part of the attention/resource is focussed on something else instead of reading the Cocoa Programming book. Pinpoint it and resolve it before going further.

Give in to the distraction, enjoy it but put a time limit on it.

Do something totally different like writing a blog post. Which is what I’m doing now. Plus updating the website, something that I keep putting off.

Find another book to read. Sometimes it can just be the wording that a writer use, which does’t connect with you. So glad that I’m not in school/university anymore and that I have the freedom to choose & gather my own information resource. And the internet is a big, big resource pool.