Unless you live in the southern hemisphere, summer's here. Right now it's gone midnight but it's still very hot, and being in the UK, where home air conditioning is not common, there's little way to alleviate the heat besides opening the window (which you don't want to do because people are continually having barbecues).

I have to admit to just not being a summer person - I don't really like hot weather or outdoor pursuits in general. I'm happier in spring and autumn when it's cool, but not cold, and I can wear my favourite Animal hoodie if it does turn chillier. When it gets hot I find it extremely difficult to get anything done unless I can do so in a fully air-conditioned environment, and have a lot of trouble sleeping at night, exacerbating the problem due to tiredness. Unfortunately, I'm now having to learn Perl from scratch during this time (a fairly daunting prospect at the best of times!), and it's a bit of a nightmare trying to actually sit down and learn regular expressions properly when it's hot and stuffy and you can't think straight.

I'll have to try going to a nice cool air-conditioned cafe with my Dell Mini, get a cold drink and see if I can get some work done that way. But I'm curious to know if anyone else has any good tips for remaining productive at learning a new programming language during hot weather that they'd like to pass on?