Non-Tech Founder of YCW12 Daily Muse Learns Code & Builds New Feature in 6 Days | Hacker News Reader

Non-Tech Founder of YCW12 Daily Muse Learns Code & Builds New Feature in 6 Days

mashable.com

50 pointsKMinshew17 comments

Being any kind of founder is all about shipping - closing the gap between idea and execution. Melissa learned to code on the side, while running a business, and most importantly, she actually shipped that code.

This isn't about perfect code or Melissa becoming a software developer, it's about a kickass founder doing whatever it takes to see her vision become reality. So much respect for this lady! She is exactly the kind of non-tech founder worth working for.

First the title is misleading, considering she took two months to learn Python, etc.

"It took about two months for her to learn Python, HTML, CSS and JavaScript — all of which were required to complete the feature"

It should be called: "Non-Tech Founder of YCW12 Daily Muse Learns Code; Builds New Feature In 6 Days".

Second, just because a feature is built in 6 days, doesn't meant that it will be able to run for 6 days without problems. It isn't hard to copy and paste code without knowing what it is doing.

On the other hand, it is good to see her taking initiative and getting her hands dirty with her own product.

Further, she's done some of this before:

"With only one high-school coding class under her belt — in a language that is no longer used — McCreery spent her evenings learning to code."

Regardless of the language she learned in high school, this is a huge leg up. Coding principles transfer easily, especially at the introductory level. Even an 8-week elective will get you over those first few humps.

Congratulations to her for learning the basics, but I find it annoying that this article seems to consider "knowing how to code" as a binary variable, either you know it or you don't. What she really did is learn to add a basic website feature in Python, which is cool but not comparable to a lot of other real "coding" going on out there.

Actually, either you do know how to do it or you don't. After that there's degrees of capability, but before learning to write software in any language there's a period of "duhhhh i don't get it" and at a certain point people get a "oh! i get it". For some that's very quick, for others it takes forever.

Once they're past that stage then it's a matter of improving skill and building a style and repertoire of techniques.

"Company Muse’s database is in Python with displays in HTML, CSS and JavaScript."

Better than the average tech article, I guess, but still incorrect.

Perhaps they are using http://gadfly.sourceforge.net/ (Gadfly is a simple relational database system implemented in Python)? :D

Let's face it, not all types of coding are hard.

"A kid grows up & finishes college in 4 years."

I wonder how the co-founder got her story on mashable.

Seems like the "Learn to Code in 10 Days" books have finally got their charm right.

Just wanted to say, my book is specifically the antithesis of "Learn X in 10 Days", which is why they have the title they do. I push people to work hard, take their time, and build skill gradually. That's why what I'm doing works for beginners while the stupid "10 days" books are basically horseshit.

This is kind of cool. I was actually talking to her about it after this event:

https://twitter.com/chriszf/status/226074915940491264

I didn't realize she was actually implementing a feature. She was talking about it as if it was a prototype so she could use it as a spec for the programmers. Turns out it was good enough for them to push:

https://twitter.com/melissa_quino/status/226471710940090368

I'm going to find out more information from her on the story and write it up, so if there's specific questions you have then let me know.

this is all good and fine, but, i would like to see the quality of that code and how much extra time it added to refactor, test and clean up to their developers?

The "feature" is a simple crud application for job postings on their corporate website. How much re-factoring and testing is necessary?

I doubt the code would need to be re-used in their main product, and why would you need anything more then user testing?

I doubt the co-founder is now prancing around talking about how coding is easy. She spent 36 hours developing a simplistic feature that would take an experienced developer less then a day.

This is a "feature" (simple crud) that would take 6 clicks to build in Visual Studio (just saying) :-)

I was wondering how much "elitism" this article might inspire. Not every bit of software needs to be developed through a TDD process using the latest NoSQL database and concurrent programming techniques. Sometimes the 80% (heck, even 40%) solution is all that is required.... Good on this person for taking some initiative.

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