Fighting the Burnout

It can be incredibly easy to burn out.  So far, I've been learning programming since the beginning of the year, going on 2 or 3 weeks, and I'm still going strong.  After a six hour stint in the library though, I start to run out of gas.  I get home, put on Netflix, and my brain feels like mush.  I never realized that programming had such a high cognitive load and took so much concentration and mental energy to do.  I'm loving it so far!  Let's get to what I've been learning.

Today I started learning SQL, which stands for "Structured Query Language."  It's a language used for handling databases, grabbing information, changing them, etc.  I asked some of my (apparently) many programming friends if it was useful.  The answers I got were:

"Meh?"

"I use it at my job sometimes.  I mostly Google what I need."

"If I didn't use it, a meteor might destroy myself and everyone at work.  LEARN IT NOW!"

"The sequel to most movies is usually terrible."

So, given the rave reviews, I decided to start learning it so that I wouldn't be ignorant of something that later on down the line I might find useful.  I'm one of those people where I think today was a good day if I go to bed slightly less ignorant than when I woke up.  So, I fired up Code Academy and started doing SQL.  When I think databases, I think of vast expanses of impenetrable numbers, like the matrix.

Instead, I found out SQL is extremely accessible and easy to understand.  I started doing some of the Code Academy problems, and at one point, it asked me to get all the movies who's IMDB rating is 8 or above.  Without even looking at the helper screen (Code Academy tends to hold your hand), I just typed in:

SELECT id FROM movies

WHERE imdb_rating >=8;

What shocked me was this was CORRECT. I started just laughing at my keyboard.  Without any coaching you can just GUESS what the syntax is!  My goal is to finish Code Academy tonight and then move on to more complicated stuff so I can feel like I have a handle with the language.