tyng

I just started down the path to learn web development a week ago (after procrastinating it for years). My only prior programming experience was some BASIC and Pascal lessons I took in primary school and a bit of self-taught HTML.

I find codecademy.com to be a fun and well structured way to learn Python. To me it may well replace the "Python for Kids" book recommended in your blog post since codecademy is free and provides instant feedback on exercises (best way to keep the motivation high!). After completing the codecademy course I'll definitely get myself a proper book to learn the language in more depth.

One thing I'm struggling with is to find mini-projects that I can build and practice with as I learn more codes. As a beginner I may come up with a mini-project idea without realising how big the project can get to or the level of skill is required. If you could suggest a few project ideas with incremental difficulty as well as novel ways for a beginner to think about programming would be really helpful.

To me the most valuable part of your blog post was mapping out the Python > SQL > HTML/CSS > framework learning path. This was another question I had in mind ("what's next after Python?") because as a beginner I really had no big picture view of what skills I need to acquire. So thanks heaps for writing up the post and I look forward to reading your follow-up!

So you think human should be playing God?

Someone should create a wikipedia entry for P. S. Landis as "inventor and the man who saved Sperm Whales"

I saw the black band at the top of the page and I knew another great has left us - it's the black band of sorrow

R.I.P

Thanks for your comment wccrawford. The other day I was thinking very hard about why I admired a former colleague of mine so much but couldn't pin it down to something concrete. Reading your comment made it suddenly all clear - it was the vision. Just like how you described it having the "vision guy" in any meeting cuts out a lot of unnecessary crap and made the team focused. It's very hard to understand or even describe how powerful this is unless one has experienced it first hand. Lucky me!

What the.... I just ungraded to Firefox 4 not long ago, haven't even got used to 4's interface (I use Chrome 99% of the time) and Firefox 5 is out...

I wonder what's the logic behind this release schedule

The second half of the article (about Obama's attack on the coal industry and that all Americans will suffer from higher electricity prices) seems very biased, which makes the first half (about nuclear power plant melt down) not very credible. I too would like to see more independent reports on this incident.

I can tell you from my experience that, parents of the current 2nd gen Asian-American children were mostly very poor, parents of the current 1st gen Asian-American kids (who just immigrated in recent years) are mostly wealthier than the average family in their home country (some are equivalent to a middle class American family, some are super rich)

It's just amazing to know everybody is getting ideas in showers - I used to think I was the lonely weird one...

In Australia, it's more like 95%... unless you pay for the super expensive Unlimited plan

Depends on the particular Asian country's relationship with the US during the cold war period - some decided to teach American English in their education systems while others followed the British way.

Depends on the particular Asian country's relationship with the US during the cold war period - some teach American English in their education system while others teach the British way.

It took me a while to realise the title of this article was about Color-the-app. Seriously, the name itself raises an eyebrow.

"First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."

- Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892–1984)

I'm not against stealing ideas and methods from other companies, internalising them then IMPROVE upon them. That's part of innovation.

But blatant copying?! Even the UI?! C'mon Kai-fu, I'm sure Innovation Work can do better than that. The whole purpose of Innovation Work (which is itself a copy of YC, for those of you who don't know) is to spur entrepreneurialism in the region, but all I see is setting up a very bad example. I can't imagine how the founders feel OWNERSHIP in their startups. It's more like a gold rush.

Pay wall blocked :(

Can someone please explain what the term "teleport" mean here? I'm not getting why this is an amazing scientific breakthrough (but I'd love to learn why it is).

If it doesn't mean information travelling instantaneously or faster than light, then did the reporter (or the scientist) put the word "teleport" in the title just so it's attention grabbing?!

Last year I was checking-in like mad, this year I completely stopped. Why? Because I changed job and the new people I hang out with don't use 4sq. It's a very different crowd that if I pull out my phone and start checking-in it would be seen as a very strange and embarrassing behaviour.

So I guess your challenge is to make check-in's as natural and encouraging as giving way to the ladies at busy restaurants.

It's a trick - we all clicked that little gray icon didn't we?

Good find. I believe Amazon allows you to sell ebooks internationally, I could be wrong though.

Ever heard of the term "two-speed economy"? It's happening right now on a much larger scale in Australia.

But the point of the $41m from an investor's perspective is to get them to scale, not survive.

Doesn't it make you a bit relaxed? I've seen the effect of "too much money" first hand, regardless of spending

From the article, I can't tell whether the word "protest" is filtered, or Shakespeare is filtered - two anecdotes don't make a conclusive evidence.

This is really... a publicity stunt. I mean if your teacher tells you not to do something, do you go to the schoolmaster and expect to get approval? Worth a try, but they shouldn't be surprised that Jobs was in "no interest"

And as others have pointed out, "We are hoping the required API's will be added to the iPhone SDK" - was more than just asking approval for an app, it requires changes in the SDK!

Jobs should've replied "give me a break!"

Ok agree the Lehman Brother example was a bit corny, but the point I'm trying to make is that we all make mistakes, including top investors like Sequoia - in fact the business model of a VC fund is to invest in 10 equally promising startups and hope 1 of them will make 100x profit and cover the loss of the other 9, and Color could be one of the 9.

Also, being a contrarian investor means you sell in a bubble (when everyone is buying) and buy in a crash (when everyone is selling).

Color just crashed on my iphone the first run.... let me launch Instagram

This is a very Western-centric view of world history to say the least.

The $41m injection might well kill the company. I've never seen startups with too much capital early on to become the next Google/Facebook/Twitter - you lose your chance to become "relentlessly resourceful"!

"Did anyone consider that maybe Sequoia, who have invested in companies that make up over 10% of the NASDAQ know what they are doing?"

Neither Merril Lynch nor Lehman Brother knew what they were doing.

"Investors are less interested in where you are today, compared to where you are going"

Yes the future is important, but there's the risk-reward trade-off. If a company looks badly risky today, a rational investor will steer away from it.

"If nothing else, posts like this are terribly offensive to the entrepreneurs that dedicate their lives to products like Color."

And for your first point, a well functioning entrepreneurs ecosystem require both dedicated entrepreneurs AND rational investors. This is not to demean the entrepreneur.