Learning through Adventure

In life, it’s easy to fall into predictable patterns of thought and behavior. In education, this is often mandated. But true growth can’t be mass produced. One size doesn’t fit all. Truly valuable education is unique to every learner. And what all true learning/growth/healing shares in common is a story or adventure. You venture out into the unknown (physically, mentally, or otherwise), and through your unique experiences are reborn.

But the experience/story/adventure must be true to who you are. Certainly, if you go through law school, you will “learn” many things. But if the practice of law doesn’t resonate with your true self and genuine curiosity, I would argue that little truly valuable learning or growth can occur, and your law degree may have done you more harm than good.

That’s why I made this site, to:

help people figure out whether coding resonates with them personally and is worth learning, and to what degree
encourage people to learn more adventurously
give me an outlet to post crazy stuff so I can keep it together at my day job

That’s not to say that this site performs these functions well. But that’s the intention at least.

And by the way my name’s Grayson, and that’s my picture down there, #nofilter.

I started Data Rebellion a while back because when I was first learning to code, it seemed like most of the educational materials and discussions were all geared toward full-time careers in programming.

But not everyone wants to be a software developer. A lot of folks just want to have a good time learning a cool new skill and automate a few boring tasks at the office, or maybe work on a little personal project on the side and impress their friends and family. I like to refer to these people as casual coders.

This is an important distinction, because there’s a big difference between how you structure the education of an aspiring software developer and that of someone who justs wants to know enough to be dangerous. It’s not as simple as the casual coder just going 25% of the way or so down the full-time path.

I mean, you could do that, but it’d most likely be inefficient and cause a lot of unnecessary confusion, not to mention feelings of inadequacy when you constantly see people saying “AT THE VERY LEAST YOU NEED TO LEARN…” followed by a list of ten or so technologies you’ve never heard of.

To better illustrate the general crowd that Data Rebellion is here to serve, here are some examples of the kinds of people I have in mind when writing my material:

White-collar workers looking to automate repetitive tasks
Professionals wanting a new skillset to help justify a raise or promotion
Workers who simply want to keep their options open and not get left behind
Individuals casually exploring the possibility of a full-time programming career
Entreprenuers that want a basic grasp of programming to aid in their innovation
Managers who want to better communicate with tech workers in their company
Students who want a fun introduction to programming
People who just think programming is cool and a joy to experience

Notice that it might possibly be worth it to all of them to have some basic programming proficiency, but at the same time none of them need anywhere near the expertise of even a junior full-time programmer. It’s an entirely different group that deserves educational materials customized for their situation.

So if you fit into any of these groups, consider subscribing to my newsletter below. I want to help get you to the point of minimum viable profiency as efficiently as possible, while still enjoying the process the whole way through.

And if you subscribe, you’ll also get my free Ebook filled with project ideas to help you find a direction to start down in your programming journey. Either way, best of luck.