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Learning to Program is STUPID! (or SMART?!)

Andy Black

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csalvato

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Let me add one more thing.
If you want to learn to program to get "into" the game, that is just to understand the basics, then learn... BASIC.
Yes, the good old english-language programming language that was designed to be an easy application layer. It puzzles me that most people overlook this nice and tidy language (ok, it has some dangerous stuff like the GOTO) that can do most of what beginners (and even mid-programmers) need, and it helps building the programmer mindset. It is even more puzzling that BASIC is not taught to kids in schools. You can make nice games with it.

BASIC? Hmmm, never heard that recommendation before...at least not since 1996.

Not saying it's not a good suggestion. I never learned BASIC so I just don't know.

In my school, they threw us into Java, then C++, then C, then Assembly. Then I taught myself PHP, Ruby, Python, and JavaScript. I never had a need to learn BASIC.

It's almost too basic and too high level. If you really want to learn code, I would argue BASIC isn't necessary, and you should learn the languages you are likely going to use every day as an entrepreneur: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery and a single back end language (Ruby, PHP, Java, or Python).
 

Writer

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BASIC? Hmmm, never heard that recommendation before...at least not since 1996.

Not saying it's not a good suggestion. I never learned BASIC so I just don't know.

In my school, they threw us into Java, then C++, then C, then Assembly. I never had a need to learn BASIC.

It's almost too basic and too high level. If you really want to learn code, I would argue BASIC isn't necessary, and you should learn the languages you are likely going to use every day as an entrepreneur: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery and a single back end language (Ruby, PHP, Java, or Python).

What you are saying is true. That is why I specifically said "if you want to learn the basics".
Of course, if your plan is to become an iOS developer or actually DO something useful and real with your programming, then I suggest something different than BASIC. However, if what you need is just to be able to understand what the heck programming is, other languages (Java, C/C++/C# etc) can be too overwhelming.
 

Nur

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google guys? coded it themselves.
facebook guys? coded it themselves
ebay guys? coded it themselves
hotmail? coded it themselves
pinterest owners? coded it themselves
microsoft? coded it themselves.
reddit?
slashdot?
yahoo?
paypal?
and the list goes on.

the major owner's wrote the first version/prototypes themselves, before they started hiring programmers.

if you want to make billions upon billions, you better learn to code!
if you are shooting for 6, 7 figures, then programming is stupid.

6 figures - you don't need to start a business

just be an employee is sufficient
 
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Shdreams

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HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery and a single back end language (Ruby, PHP, Java, or Python).
This stuff makes me feel like I should put down my lap top pick up a box of crayons and sign up for grade 4. None the less I'm enjoying it.Taking baby steps. And tinkering with a already made website. So far nothing has worked for me haha
 

armitage79

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I went to an Ivy League university for Computer Science. Complete waste of time. All my coding needs are now outsourced to India and completed in 1/2 the time it would take me.
 

Actionary

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My take on this: If you are planning to open up a franchise of restaurants, Having the skills of being a certified architect, builder & electrician can save you some money, but it will not help you leverage your time. These skills are needed in your plans, but you do not need to have or master these skills yourself for your plans to work. Furthermore, Why waste time learning something that will take along time, when you can borrow on someone elses knowledge.

Buy yourself someones 7+ years of programming knowledge for dollars per hour versus spending several hundred hours to get to the person you could have hire's level. Even when you've spent all the time to get to that level, you still haven't started on the project.

Remember: Your time has a cost as well, even at something as bad as minimum wage, how much time are you losing out on learning this skill if you have no hobby like desire to turn it into your profession? Its just one piece of your overall puzzle. Don't take all your time to save a few dollars. Reverse it: Take as few dollars as you can to save all your time.

TLDR: A few dollars can buy you the help of a skilled programmer, while a few dollars per hour more can get you a better one. Don't lose your time trying to gain the skill level that you can easily afford to purchase and lose out on the hours of your life, which you can never get back.

I self taught myself to program to make money, but now that i am working on a business, i don't even have the kind of time or rather the patience to learn more about programming when i can hire someone out that's a lot more skilled than I am.
 
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Milkanic

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Or you can be like these guys and get raked over the coals, spending millions on development.
http://emergensee.com/

If you are developing a technical project without a technical founder, you are going to have a bad time.
 

RRR

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The answer is: "It is SMART!"

But only if you already program...

Learning from scratch now would take you a while to get to COMMERCIAL STANDARD and the time may be better spent elsewhere depending on your Fastlane project.

And a great programmer will always be LEARNING...

The majority of new businesses will be formulated around a scalable model. Any entrepreneur will also be looking for MAXIMUM market disruption and impact. With smaller budgets to your sector peers but a SUPERIOR: product / website / mobile app / saas solution - you have a chance...

"All successful entrepreneurs and business owners have one thing in common: they're masters of their respective fields"*

But if you cannot become the 'Master Of Your Field' then employ someone who is...

There is a quote in Napoleon Hill's 'Think And Grow Rich' book where one of the subjects interviewed says "I do not need to be the best in my field, I just need to be able to employ someone who is".

RRR
 
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Feek

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Learning from scratch now would take you a while to get to COMMERCIAL STANDARD and the time may be better spent elsewhere depending on your Fastlane project.

This. If you're just adding features to your website or making a quick application that your customers are not going to see or use, go ahead and learn programming.

On the other hand, if you're trying to make a commercial-quality product, DO NOT do it yourself. It may seem pretty straightforward (we programmers get the "but I just want XXXX, that's pretty simple isn't it?" all the time from non-programmers), but in reality the maintenance and bug resolution steps alone will swamp you to the point of throwing up your hands.

Hell, I have 30 years total programming experience and even I'd have to bring in a team to help make a sellable product, and at that it would still be a daily fight to make something that someone would want to buy.
 

Ninjakid

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Learn code if you are genuinely interested in it.

"I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money's sake." -J.D. Rockefellar

And by the way, if you're capable of learning a second language and writing an essay in it, you're capable of learning a programming language and writing a program in it.
 

Davo

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Learn code if you are genuinely interested in it.

"I know of nothing more despicable and pathetic than a man who devotes all the hours of the waking day to the making of money for money's sake." -J.D. Rockefellar

And by the way, if you're capable of learning a second language and writing an essay in it, you're capable of learning a programming language and writing a program in it.

.
 
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Feek

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I'm keen to learn code and I can read/write/speak 3 languages. The first 2 I was fluent in before I was 10yo. English I started learning at age 11, probably wasn't fluent till say 13yo.

Are my chances good that I'll be able to pick up programming?
My personal input, so take it with a grain of salt. I know over 20 programming languages, most of them I'm "fluent" in, but for the life of me I can't seem to learn more than a few phrases of any other human language besides English.

The thing to know in programming is logic, because programming isn't about math like most people seem to think. I also find that being mechanically inclined helps with my programming as well - I picture most computer systems I work on as a big machine and each software component as a part in that machine, and then each component has its own parts and so on.
 

Digamma

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As an expert programmer, I would say that learning how to program and get to the point when you can make a decent product is NOT a smart way to go if you want to be a businessman, for the simple fact that you will never be as good as someone who does only that for a living and it would take years to be even decent.

I program and make my products, but only because I've been programming since I was like 10, and that makes me hardwired to understand technologies and best practices in a tenth of the time it takes to a less expert programmer. It is just easier for me to make my first products this way.

And still, as soon as I will have experience and funds enough to work on bigger things (not bootstrapped, not one man projects) I will get out of product development and use my time in other ways while hiring a professional shop to create the product.

That said, a basic knowledge is great for three things: first, you understand what the hell it is you are throwing money to; second, it's a worthwhile activity that makes you keep your logic sharp; third, it's great to automate little things in your daily work to enhance your productivity.
 

Feek

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I program and make my products, but only because I've been programming since I was like 10, and that makes me hardwired to understand technologies and best practices in a tenth of the time it takes to a less expert programmer. It is just easier for me to make my first products this way.

And still, as soon as I will have experience and funds enough to work on bigger things (not bootstrapped, not one man projects) I will get out of product development and use my time in other ways while hiring a professional shop to create the product.
I'm with you on this, buddy. I've been programming for a total of about 30 years now, and as SOON as I get the chance, I'm outsourcing all the programming work I'm doing right now. Eventually, I'm even going to hire someone to take over the management of my offshoring team.

That said, a basic knowledge is great for three things: first, you understand what the hell it is you are throwing money to; second, it's a worthwhile activity that makes you keep your logic sharp; third, it's great to automate little things in your daily work to enhance your productivity.
Emphasis mine.

This is one of the biggest reasons business people should learn at least a little bit of programming in some language. There are hundreds of tiny things in a business that can be automated through a quick and dirty program running in the background on a server somewhere. If you don't have a programmer on staff, this one thing will save a ton of time!
 

Feek

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Nice coz as soon as I see any algebra I'm outta there lol. I'm going to give it a pretty good crack as I actually think my mind is wired right for coding.
Not NO math, just not as much as most people think. ;) In most business programming, the math is constrained to something a 10th grader can usually do.
For work at the moment, I'm actually creating workflows via a WYSIWYG editor for our ITSM tool and there's plenty of logic involved. e.g. I built this process today that wouldn't have taken more than 10 mins had I had time to soak in the requirements and plan an attack rather. Instead I was dumped with the requirements first thing in the morning and told to finish it by lunch as we had to freeze configuring the system to get ready for prod (yeah I know crazy).

Process name: New P1 Incident notification
When a P1 Incident is created, do the following:
Send email (rich text) to an Email Distribution List (DL)
From: address is based on checking System State (PROD/DEV)
To: address is based on checking System State & AND Location of Incident. If Location is not specified, default to a particular DL​
Send an SMS (plain text) to an SMS DL (via email-to-sms)
From: address is based on checking System State
To: address is based on checking System State AND Location of Incident. If Location is not specified, default to a particular DL​


Silly me did it like this first few times...
  • Send single rich text email to email DL and SMS DL (then realised the SMS hardly got any info in it so had to split them for plain text/sms)
  • Cloned 8 emails and 8 sms templates for each location and manually entered a DL in the To:
    • then thought wtf, that would be a nightmare to maintain so many emails
    • figured out I should just use 1 rich and 1 plain text email and have the To: address be decided based on an expression fed by a case expression (for locations and default).
Now I just need to have that same type of logical thinking with real code instead of a nice UI that's apparently using XML definitions haha.

A while back I also had demo'd this same tool to my bosses where I would go to a public web service (weather report), grab the data and parse it (using the ITSM's tools parser). I got it to check every few mins and when the forecast changed to storm/hail/otherbadstuff, it would create an email to say 'GET THE GENERATORS READY' lol.
If you want to learn for the sake of learning, I'd say go for it - you seem to have pretty good logic (especially if you're working with workflows), and it looks like you notice the right things that matter in programming (i.e., too many templates to maintain). Not to sound like a broken record, but commercial level programs are best done by programmers with years of experience who have seen the problems that can arise in development and stop them before they happen, so as long as you stay away from that for the next few years you should be good.

I know it's too late now, but one thing that may have helped your deadline is looking for a workaround. We do that all the time in development when there's an emergency; try to find a workaround for the users to use which gives me a little bit of breathing room to attack the problem correctly.
 
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Digamma

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I'm with you on this, buddy. I've been programming for a total of about 30 years now, and as SOON as I get the chance, I'm outsourcing all the programming work I'm doing right now. Eventually, I'm even going to hire someone to take over the management of my offshoring team.
Yeah, that is like the last stage, when you basically make your money do all the work. Capitalism. :rockon:

Yeah I don't actually plan on being a great developer. I just need to get my foot in the door.

I feel like if I can come up with some sample apps, it will open me up to a different way of thinking in terms of business ideas. I used to work in Insurance and my workmate and I always thought of things that could be created to provide value to customers but never got anywhere since we didn't have a technical/dev partner to brainstorm with us.

e.g. we wanted to make pre-sale easier by creating a better comparison site or claims processing easier but couldn't create a prototype.
Also, it is immensely easier to get funding/partners/cofounders if you have a prototype of your idea.
 

Ninjakid

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I'm keen to learn code and I can read/write/speak 3 languages. The first 2 I was fluent in before I was 10yo. English I started learning at age 11, probably wasn't fluent till say 13yo.

Are my chances good that I'll be able to pick up programming?

Yes, I think you will do well. Also good on you for learning multiple languages.
 

Glantern13

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If think the others also summed this up pretty good. You have to know what you're talking about, the basics. Then hire out to let people do it for out with clear instructions.

Would you have any suggestions on where to learn the basics? Specific websites/books?

I've tried to figure it out on my own in the past and I have pretty much failed.
 
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Iwokeup

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This really depends on the person and their interests. If you enjoy coding and want to learn coding so you can code apps then learn coding, but if you want to be a business person, don't learn to code just so you don't have to pay a coder.
 

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@Glantern13 I think the fastest way to learn to learn a programming is with Head Fist books. They use a "neuro-science" technique" to keep your brain engaged.

This is the closest thing to the "knowledge injection" of The Matrix.

http://www.headfirstlabs.com/
 
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regalforte

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Just curious...

What's the point of learning coding when so many free/cheap website makers such as weebly exists? Wouldn't it be easier to just fork over a few bucks a month to be able to make a website ten times faster with pre-made themes?
 

theag

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Just curious...

What's the point of learning coding when so many free/cheap website makers such as weebly exists? Wouldn't it be easier to just fork over a few bucks a month to be able to make a website ten times faster with pre-made themes?
No.
 
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jeandearme

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Well, maybe try with sections about apps or check at least topic I wrote about it:
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...-it-from-zero-to-the-google-play-store.47816/

and then search for Allen Wong programming resources.

If You want to code in Android here are what I use for Android development:
http://www.bongizmo.com/blog/android-resources-each-developer-should-know/
https://www.youtube.com/user/derekbanas/playlists (search for Android playlists)
http://stackoverflow.com - first place You go for help when coding

Those three links alone will keep You busy for like a year or two. It's a lot of stuff, but even getting in touch of 10% of this will get You good to go. I started like a year and a half ago and I don't regret that.
 
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mt_myke

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Just curious...

What's the point of learning coding when so many free/cheap website makers such as weebly exists? Wouldn't it be easier to just fork over a few bucks a month to be able to make a website ten times faster with pre-made themes?

That works fine until you want to tweak it or scale it up, at which point you can find yourself paying 10x trying to make it work than you would have paid doing it with more appropriate tools in the first place. I've seen the line about "we'll do a quick prototype and then redo the real thing later" many times, and just as many times had the client say "well this is fine, I don't want to spend $$$ to redo it, let's just use the prototype". Then they want to do X, Y, and Z and bingo - developer hell!

I just use the 20 minute test. If you're making an ultra-simple landing page that you don't expect to spend more than 20 minutes on, go with a template/generator approach. On the other hand if you're ready to build the foundation of your online empire, listen to people who have to deal with developer hell for a living.

Following the car analogies popular here, you can get one of those fake body kits (sorry don't know the right terminology) that makes a cheap car look like a much more expensive supercar. May even fool some people from a distance, but when you're driving it you sure as heck know the difference!
 

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