> Any experiences where you became unproductive while using a language or technology, wasting time googling, reading multiple blog posts on the topic, trying to

> Any experiences where you became unproductive while using a language or technology, wasting time googling, reading multiple blog posts on the topic, trying to fill in the blanks? Yes, when trying to bridge between first learning to program the little text applications and trying to program something more useful was the worst time for that. I'd like to see more guides bridging the beginner stuff; Land of Lisp, for example; and the more complex stuff; such as creating a GUI, talking to other devices connected to the computer, calling foriegn functions, and so on. There seems to be remarkably little out there that takes someone from... toys... to actually having something useful which they can put in the hands of someone else. Or that tells you how to learn to learn that stuff for yourself. I suspect we lose a fair number of potential programmers to that sort of thing – running through the beginner stuff and then having no idea where to take it next.