This is an excellent comment, and I really feel similar to you, and I have had the same experience!
I completely agree with "working with someone else". Find a programming buddy, do it. Join IRC and start becoming a regular in whatever channels you're passionate about (#programming, #rails... etc). You will find someone you kick off well with, and you will find yourselves working on the same project but the BEST thing is you will both make each other passionate and force one another to finish a project. It's exciting and fun.
However, "being forced to do it" I'm not sure sits well with me -- if you're forced to create web forms all day, every day, you'll get so tired, bored and you'll start to _hate_ programming. It's best to be around like minded people (even if it's IRC or your programming buddy).
My programming buddy is now my co-founder. Exciting times ahead! :-)
My last tip would be to learn algorithms, which aren't tied to any programming language but will give you a really good mindset for solving problems. It wasn't until I really sat down to learn recursion etc, that I learned programming for real.
I completely agree with "working with someone else". Find a programming buddy, do it. Join IRC and start becoming a regular in whatever channels you're passionate about (#programming, #rails... etc). You will find someone you kick off well with, and you will find yourselves working on the same project but the BEST thing is you will both make each other passionate and force one another to finish a project. It's exciting and fun.
However, "being forced to do it" I'm not sure sits well with me -- if you're forced to create web forms all day, every day, you'll get so tired, bored and you'll start to _hate_ programming. It's best to be around like minded people (even if it's IRC or your programming buddy).
My programming buddy is now my co-founder. Exciting times ahead! :-)
My last tip would be to learn algorithms, which aren't tied to any programming language but will give you a really good mindset for solving problems. It wasn't until I really sat down to learn recursion etc, that I learned programming for real.