Update on this: I managed to stay focused for a few weeks, then it lost my interest, in classic failure fashion.
Blew another week or two playing civ iv. realized that I've played that game for a decade and am still terrible at it. learning programming can't be THAT much harder than this.
the way I see it, this could be a major bitter defeat that results in me giving for an even longer amount of time and making zero progress.
or I could get my ass up and back on the horse, analyze what went wrong, and try again.
here's what I think went wrong:
1) I picked the wrong kind of book. In my quest to find something comprehensive, i went a little overboard and picked a book completely dedicated to syntax. I think it would have made a much better reference book than something for a near-newbie to learn from.
2) I think I picked the wrong programming language. I need to be picking a tool based on what I want to do. And what I want to do, people use c++, so that should be the syntax I'm learning, even if it is a little tougher. as I was forcing myself to press on in that book I kept thinking "even after I learn python, I'm still another book on programming away from getting closer to what I really want to study." that allowed a discouraging feedback loop to fester.
So I'm reexamining the situation. I really want to make something of this so I'm researching new learning options. These ones oriented towards C++, and designed to be a TUTORIAL, not a reference. I'm going to choose carefully this time. I want something readable, that doesn't go into way too much detail, but still goes deep and teaches what I need to know.
If anybody gives a shit, I'll let you know what I decide.