Ask HN: 'Idea' guy moving in the right direction? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: 'Idea' guy moving in the right direction?

19 pointsJcasc31 comments

So, I'm an idea guy with no means of attracting a quality tech founder. Yes I have a business degree, but I want more involvement. I want to UNDERSTAND the inner workings of my theoretical products inside and out (Or as best I can, to enhance productivity & communication).

I'm a little over a year out of college, and my 9-5 is slowly melting my brain. I am kicking myself for not majoring in CS.

My actions are the following: I want to build web apps, in order to hack together a pathetic prototype I have purchased Learn to Program by Chris Pine. It teaches the basics of Ruby, I am then planning on starting Rails with either;

--Ruby on Rails 3 Tutorial-- or --Agile Web development with Rails-- Opinions?

I have varying levels of PS, HTML, CSS, SEO experience.

I need to learn some Javascript. Material suggestions?

I seriously considered Python/Django, however the web apps that most closely resemble the itch I'm trying to scratch are hiring Rails developers, so that was the biggest deciding factor as both have great communities and my project is no tech marvel.

To name a few, spare time day dreaming at my 9-5 consists of: Steve Blank, Eric Ries, Four Steps to the Epiphany, Rework, Vinicius Vacanti, HN, Last but certainly not least, my main man PG

I am happy, excited, and most of all, hungry.

I more than welcome any constructive criticism this community may offer.

-J

Some thoughts:

* First of all, good on you for trying to learn how to build stuff.

* "I need to learn some Java. Material suggestions?" --> I'm assuming you mean JavaScript. I've heard good things about http://eloquentjavascript.net/contents.html, which is free and has an interactive REPL right in the browser as you do the tutorial.

* "I seriously considered Python/Django..." --> personally I think Python is a much easier language than Ruby for beginners. The syntax is cleaner and more readable. The reason you give for using RoR instead is understandable given your lack of experience, but it's not actually valid. You can make exactly the same apps with Rails and Django, and I don't think one is even more conducive to any specific type of app than the other. I've also heard bad things about the Rails community, though I haven't verified any of that personally. If I were you I'd spend 30-60 mins on Python and Ruby each, and choose based on which you're more comfortable working with.

Good luck!

Thank you for the javascript suggestions.

I am 1/2 way through Chris Pine's Learn to Program Ruby book. I hear http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index is a good resource for beginners, I will take a look.

Thoughts? Any other tutorials/books you recommend for Python/Django?

Learn Python the Hard Way will give you more than enough Python knowledge to get started with Django.

The Django tutorial [1] is very impressive - it will take you from the initial steps to a very basic (but working) web application, exposing various Django concepts along the way.

The Django documentation is so good I learned Python from it - I had never used Python before starting to learn Django. The tutorials and docs on the Django site are better than any of the Django books I have looked at so far.

[1] http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/

I didn't learn Python from a book, I learned it by forcing myself to write something nontrivial in it...but I had prior programming experience. So I'm not sure if I can give you much useful advice here.

I'll second mryan's recommendation for the Django docs, though.

Also, I see you're in NY. I am too. Shoot me an email if you want to grab coffee some time.

I also didn't learn Python from a book, but figuring that my ad-hoc learning style might have left gaps in my knowledge (and being a fan of Zed Shaw's work) I ran through the "Python the Hard Way" book and found it to be a VERY solid way to go about things.

Turned out there weren't any language basics in there that I didn't already know, but I heartily recommend the book to anybody looking for a quick start into programming.

As mentioned by others, Learn Python the Hard Way is a great place to start. I suggest supplementing it with:

The Google tutorial on Python. [1] Python by Osmosis screencasts [2] Django Book online. [3] ProudN00b is a great blog on a similar path from little coding experience to Python + Django [4]

[1] http://code.google.com/edu/languages/google-python-class/int... [2] http://www.youtube.com/user/ryanmshea [3] http://www.djangobook.com/en/2.0/ [4] http://www.proudn00b.com/archive

Thank you very much. Really appreciated.

Another resource for Python is the MIT OpenCourseWare class, Introduction to Computer Science and Programming. Some aspects may be a little behind your skill level but it is a quality course overall.

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-comput...

Good luck!

Great rec, I actually came upon that a few weeks ago and it nearly made me decide to go with Python. ...Alright I'm convinced.

Hey mate, I know this is going to sound like spamming but check out www.mmmilan.tumblr.com I just made a post about pretty much exactly this. I started out as the "idea guy" and have started hacking on my own project.

Some advice that worked for me, take your idea, and strip it down to the one function that makes it valuable. Learn how to do that. There's lots of good tutorials online. I never did the tutorials word for word, I just used them to learn functions that would apply to my application. Also, don't be tempted to fall into just copying and pasting code. Learn what it means, write it yourself, tinker with it.

The stuff that BAFFLED me when I looked at it originally makes perfect sense now. It comes to you, don't get stressed out, just take it in steps and you'll be shocked how far you get.

Feel free to email me, I'm in no way some master coder but I know where you're coming from.

Cheers and best of luck!

Thank you, I will certainly be reading your blog.

Nice to see another person take the leap! Us wannabe hackers gotta stick together :) Good luck on your own endeavour as well! My initial blog was actually on tumblr as well but it was annoying that you had to get a plugin for comments so I jumped to wordpress. Something you might want to consider if you plan on blogging and interacting with visitors.

Where do you live? The big tech cities have plenty of events and hackerspace-esque places that will hold fundamentals courses. Look for Meetups.

Despite your comment on Rails hiring, I've found that the larger Python community runs better events. Everything you learn about CS, programming, software engineering, web performance, etc. will hold.

Also, even if it seems illogical for some reason, nobody uses just one thing. The advantages that certain languages and toolkits hold over others are a wash unless you're doing something special, and you already recognize that you're not. You'll pick up much more as time goes on, and you'll never stop.

I'm from NY. I plan on networking as soon as I develop my understanding a bit further. I will look to take advantage of fundamentals courses. That's a good idea, thanks.

I'm going to play around with Python for the rest of the week and then decide. It really doesn't matter to me much, I have no preference... I'm just eager to pick one and start prototyping.

The NYC Python meetup is terrific. Tons of smart people there. There's a huge crossover with the Django meetup. NYC Ruby is good too. You should consider the Web Performance meetup if you want to know about web architecture.

There are fundamentals courses at General Assembly, and it's a good environment.

It's amazing how I'm on the same situation. Actually it's if you think it's not that amazing, I bet like us there are loads of people trying o do the same thing.

The questions that crosses my mind are:

Should we do everything by ourselves or should we try to find partership?

I have been looking for partnership but it's very complicated. Everyone has it's own ideas and no one wants to be part on someone's else idea. I still couldn't figure out a way to solve this. Maybe it's even an insight for an idea.

What I'm doing is trying to learn to do by myself. I'm taking the easy path, using frameworks and everything that helps.

At the moment I'm trying to put my ideas together with: jquery, wordpress, some PHP basically for the wordpress integration and hacks, and APIs. And I'm aware I should start with some server side. I would go for the RoR.

Just sharing my toughts here. I'd appreciate any comment on that.

I've gone through a few potential co-founders. I'm currently working with one on an idea I had, it's going OK... but that's about it. It's really hard to attract quality Programmers, I'd like to educate myself a bit further before I make a serious networking push.

Development has been very slow, and I'm really trying to adhere to MVP and Lean Startup practices. Therefore, I'm going to take the time to learn how to hack some garbage together with hopes of attracting some talent.

I wish you the best, stay motivated!

I think we have come a long ways since the days you need to write everything from scratch just to get a basic web site up and running to get your idea across. Have you check out Umbraco? It's a CMS but very easy to use and extend. You can get your basic site up and running in no time. If you want to extend it further, you have custom control that you can add using XSLT, Java Script, C#, etc... This way, you can focus on building your idea instead of building a web site.

I'm familiar with Wordpress, Joomla, and Drupal. I believe I'm looking for more web app dev/functionality vs building a general website.

I will certainly check out Umbraco, though.

I'm enjoying finding my webapp niche and letting others do the bits I don't like (js). knowing how to admin your own system is key to providing you freedom, but know when to outsource work so you yourself can get work done.

use redmine, wikis, SCM, etc, and find the vibrant community you most resonate with. for me it was the django/python communities. get creative and have fun, that is also important.

I'm kinda in the same boat. I've been blogging about my 'turning hacker' journey at http://pragmaticstartup.wordpress.com. You might find it helpful. I've got some posts on learning Python and why I chose Python as well which might be interesting. All in all, good luck!

Believe it or not I've stumbled upon your blog before in searching for some answers to questions touched on in this post. I must say your blog was a big motivator based on the fact we're both young and non-MBA business guys looking to make our mark in the tech/startup world.

This post was very PRO python/django... other posts I've searched on HN have been pro Ruby/Rails. The best piece of advice I've gotten is to try both, I burned down 1/2 the entry rails book I ordered... Loved it(or maybe I was just excited to create some extreme novice terminal program telling me how many characters are in my full name). Tonight I'm going to attack the Learnpythonthehardway tutorial and then decide.

Do you feel like you're coming along quickly? Enjoying yourself thus far? PS I plan on blogging about this endeavor.

Oh yeah, its been fun. The learning curve can be pretty daunting at times but that's what its all about. I think having fun is an important part of it, so it seems like you enjoy this process of learning as thats definitely a good sign. Do keep us posted on your progress! Looking forward to sharing experiences :)

I'd suggest starting with Mozilla Dev Network/Javascript [1] for learning Javascript. Going through how JQuery/YUI/[library of choice] is written is pretty interesting and a great learning experience.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en/javascript

I've been working as a Product Manager (aka idea guy) for the past 4 years in NYC and would love to help. My e-mail is in my profile.

Jcasc - looking for learning java material?

Yes sir, deciding between Prototype or Jquery. Although I am rather uneducated regarding Javascript as a topic. Any reading you can suggest would help.

Javascript. Java is something else.

Go jQuery though, in my opinion. It lets you do what you need to do without actually knowing javascript, in most cases.

It seems you want to learn Javascript, not Java. Javascript is the language that can be used to manipulate objects on the browser. Prototype and Jquery are written in Javascript.

Sorry! Yes, Javascript.

Yeah, ignore my Java comment. I would start out with just plain ole Javascript.

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