I learned to program in Excel macros, in the sense that there was something I wanted to do (or was told to in order to get a bit of my physics course ticked off) and was told "use macros, here's a guide to the commands you can put together" and I put them together in an order that did what I needed.
Then I worked at BAS for a summer and did shedloads of data analysis using Lotus 123 macros because that was there and I could transfer the concept of if/then, loop, etc across to the 'new' language.
Then wait a year, do the 2-week Java course to get into Part II General and spend a year going to lectures on everything from logic gates to operating systems to business studies.
And then work for (count them) 7 years as a programmer. I don't think I'm anywhere near your level, and I know I'm not a good system programmer or low-level programmer but I can break down a problem and solve it, even if not always quickly. I know how to find information and I generally learn 'just enough' to get a specific job done. I have got a sense of the existence of many layers of abstraction and roughly how they fit together and I don't ever remember the details but I do know who I work with who's good at different layers, and how to start diagnosing roughly where a problem might lie.
So for me, being given a good overview and a series of specific tasks and access to experts in various areas, and use of The Internet has done pretty well, and I like to think I'm at least an averagely-good programmer rather than an ignorant and dreadful one.
no subject
Then I worked at BAS for a summer and did shedloads of data analysis using Lotus 123 macros because that was there and I could transfer the concept of if/then, loop, etc across to the 'new' language.
Then wait a year, do the 2-week Java course to get into Part II General and spend a year going to lectures on everything from logic gates to operating systems to business studies.
And then work for (count them) 7 years as a programmer. I don't think I'm anywhere near your level, and I know I'm not a good system programmer or low-level programmer but I can break down a problem and solve it, even if not always quickly. I know how to find information and I generally learn 'just enough' to get a specific job done. I have got a sense of the existence of many layers of abstraction and roughly how they fit together and I don't ever remember the details but I do know who I work with who's good at different layers, and how to start diagnosing roughly where a problem might lie.
So for me, being given a good overview and a series of specific tasks and access to experts in various areas, and use of The Internet has done pretty well, and I like to think I'm at least an averagely-good programmer rather than an ignorant and dreadful one.