OSDev.org

OK I have posted on these boards with so many questions, I spammed up the whole forum.

But I have a few questions in list/bullet form:
[*]I took a break and want to return to trying to figure this stuff out.
[*]I may be losing interest in the goal of developing an operating system.
[*]I admit that I'm not a programmer and I am taking the path more difficult to become one.
[*]my logic is bad. I can't have you ask me very detailed instructions and expect me to recall it in sequence.
[*]I try new things once in a while, but get intimidated and no choice to shut down when things get very hard. I literally can't expand my comfort zone. It's like me trying to expand the letters of the alphabet beyond z.

I don't see any questions. Anyway, don't worry about it. It's normal to lose interest in some things and become interested in others. It's also normal to practice your trade in order to become proficient. It's also fine to give up something that you don't like so if you come to the conclusion that programming (or arts, or anything else) is not your thing, there's no shame in that. However, the last thing you want to do is think that you're stupid because you see other people are better than you. They all work hard.

I may have posted this in the incorrect forum.

It's just because I thought programming a computer would be cool, but I couldn't get the whole "give very detailed sequence of instructions " thing. I may have made a mistake to learn how to program, let alone system programming.

I'm not saying it's all lost, but I'm beginning to find that conclusion, and it kind of sucks.

If somebody asked me to turn on a light, I'll just find the next switch to me. No systematic details needed, even for such a simple task.

Computer programming is cool, when it works. Most of your time will be spent getting it to work...

If I can make a suggestion, try picking something specific that you'd like your PC to do, and focus on making it do that, until it works. This is what makes computer programming cool.

For me, the first thing I wanted to see work was to turn off the machine. And the second thing was to eject a CD. I just think it's cool when writing software can manipulate things in the real world.

So maybe the problem is that you haven't picked a specific goal to focus your effort upon.

And we're more than happy to help you reach whatever goal you pick. Just try to be as specific as possible.

Either way, good luck with whatever you choose.

If you want to turn off the lights - try RPi and some Philips Hues and do some application programming with them. It might re-light your interest.

Ahh.. I see what you did there...

I tried picking one goal to start on (like a website or game) but it will be the same and I feel overwhelmed because I suck at actually "soaking in" reading materials.

Try https://codecombat.com/

A website or a game may be too big of a goal if you are just getting started.

A better goal would be seeing text on the screen, or making noise with the PC speaker.

A good exercise is to pretend that you are the CPU, and walk through the code one statement at a time, and figure out what has changed after that statement is complete.

If you don't know what a particular statement does, then you can look it up, and walk through it one step at a time.

Let's try a different approach... How about you tell us one thing that confuses you, and we'll try to explain it in a way that you should be able to pick up on fairly easily. I like to think that I'm pretty good at that...

Speaking from personal experience, find something real, from your life, that you can "solve" with a computer program. Nothing like solving an actual problem. Something simple. Achievable.

Over the decades, I have written programs that...

• managed attendance lists and statistics for my local Judo club
• helped me with practicing English vocabulary, asking me those words I had gotten wrong before more often than those I already knew
• managed a BloodBowl league, and its teams, taking game results and updates, and printing fill-in game sheets for the next round for all players involved
• managed a list of Amiga shareware software titles, their current versions, and the regular updating of that list using the AmiNet upload list, generating HTML from the data
• managed news items for http://www.amiga-news.de, and their translations, generating HTML for the frontpage (replaced by an online CMS by someone else now)
• helps with "rolling" Rolemaster RPG characters (on my mobile phone!)
• helps with "rolling" and resolving Rolemaster RPG attacks (on my mobile phone!)

...and quite likely a couple more I have forgotten.

The point is that applying yourself to a "real" problem, you already know the "problem domain", and you get the immediate reward from implementing something that you would like to have (as opposed to, trying to "please" other people you'll probably never meet with a software you don't actually need yourself).

Or maybe you forget about the most important thing.
It happens that someone has to give up for a while simply because he doesn't get paid for his hobby, and he has to do some work to fill up his and his children's stomach.