It can't be just me?
If I have a project to do, I can quickly evaluate what the best language to do it with will be (out of PHP, perl, java, C, C++ and, errr, Fortran
.)
Anyway, the problem I have is that I'll look up what I need to know to solve my problem (usually something maths based), solve it, and then go on and forget about the whole thing again.
I'm still in education, so I won't be getting a programming job for some time, if ever. The problem I have is that I just can't learn it unless I have something real to work towards. If it's something like designing a system to share files from one computer to another I'll tend to find a solution that doesn't involve reinventing the wheel.
Anyway, what I'm asking is if anybody else had the same problem, and what sort of thing they did to get themelves motivated to actually do something. Buying books is not a problem, as long as they're published by O'Reilly or one of their partners (Sams, etc.)