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

[healthstatus]

I'd drop $10k on a programmer before I dropped 1000 hours of my time learning a programming language. I'll learn programming AFTER I'm rich.

With my primary programmer, that $10k, would cover his fee for almost four months 40 hours a week. For second level programmers, 5 months.

 

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[princesslane]

My opinion is that if you were not naturally attracted to programming and have a wealth of knowledge on the subjects, it would be a bit of a waste to go into it hoping to strike gold. It is better spending time perfecting the strengths that you have that are scalable and will make you money in the market.

My question is, how do you go about attracting skilled coders if you are brand NEW? if you have limited resources and want to do something in techenology, isnt it smart to begin work on it yourself at least in the beginning?

 

[healthstatus]

Elance, Odesk, Rentacoder, Guru and all the other sites are full of programmers that are looking for jobs. Each of the sites has a rating system, and most tell you how much money the person has made through the site. When looking for a new coder I find a straight forward project that is similar, but much smaller than my long term project. I post that on the site. When the bids come in, if a person has less than 5 or 6 ratings, or the ratings are .5 or more below perfect, they are tossed out. I then make sure they have made 4x to 5x the amount of money on the site already as the bid they are making. So if they bid $1000 on my project, but have only previously made $300.00 then I know they have only worked on tiny projects, I would want them in the previously made $5000.00 category if they have 5-6 ratings. I want them to have worked on projects of this scope before. I then scour the reviews, if in more than 50% of the projects they don't get a perfect score on meeting schedule, out they go. Be careful when looking at ratings, when someone rates down on quality, that can be because they didn't articulate their specifications well. At this point you should have at least a couple of people with good ratings, worked on multiple jobs of your size and meets their schedules. Most likely they will not be your low bidders. On occasions that I am really looking for someone permanent, I have hired the two best candidates and had them both do the project. The one that comes out best gets approached to working long term (if I liked how they worked and communicated).

 

[SaraK]

I think there are two questions to consider, and this could apply to coding or any other skill that you could potentially hire out.

1) Which do you have more of, time or money? If you have more money and less time, then hiring someone else to do it makes the most sense. And vice versa, if you have more time than money, then you may need to learn to do it yourself until you have the money to outsource.

2) What do skills do you want to learn, and why? Are you wanting to do it once yourself so you understand how it works? Are you building skills so that others will hire you? Are you trying to turn yourself into an "expert" in this skill so you can make money teaching others how to do it? Know your reason.

Learning to code, or any other skill for that matter, can be smart of stupid depending on the reasons why you're doing it. The stupid course is making the assumption that you have to do something a certain way because that's how other people have done it. Make the decision based on YOUR circumstances and goals.

 

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[FloK]

Couldn't agree more. I learned C++ and Cobol I and Cobol II in college. Once I graduated, everything I learned was outdated. I think the point is you want to have highly leveraged skills as an entrepreneur because time is your most valuable asset.

To me the best skills to learn as an entrepreneur are:

Sales: Learn to sell in person, by phone, and through videos. I took a telemarketing job to learn how to sell. And like someone else mentioned, when you know how to sell, you know to create value which can = money.

Advertising: Learn to write ads that get your phone to ring, traffic to your site, emails in your database. Once you have a database, you now have something that can be leveraged.

Money Management: If you can't manage money, you won't stay in business no matter how much you make.

Project Management: Create or buy a system that manages your important projects. Your projects have to either involve creating sales, or managing customers.

Everything else can wait.

You can learn coding AFTER you've started your successful business. Just realize that being a coder is a religion, it's not something you can "use" just so you can make money. You would need to literally eat, sleep, and poop code. Then do it all over again when the new stuff comes out.

I think this is my first post here so I hope I didn't hijack your thread sorry!

 

[krueger75]

All I know, is that I've spent multiple days trying to figure out coding on a landing page, and basically lost focus on what I was doing, and energy because of it. I will definitely avoid coding at all costs from now on as it just slows me down.

 

[krueger75]

To build on my last post, I was just thinking that to be successful, a person needs to focus on their strengths, and get others with different strengths to perform necessary duties. Just a tidbit.

 

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[LamboMP]

AGAIN, as MJ has even previously mentioned. You do not have to be a PRO. Learn as you go and you can build anything you want.

You will not become a professional programmer writing enterprise level applications, but you will have gained valuable knowledge in the process.

Some people aren't meant to be computer people. So, in that case, as Healthstatus has mentioned, just outsource what you can't do.

 

[healthstatus]

You do not have to be a PRO. Learn as you go and you can build anything you want.

I STRONGLY disagree. That was true before 2003, it isn't anymore. People won't tolerate shabby, buggy code. Hackers will feast on it.

 

[LamboMP]

learn object oriented programming then. learn about security. it really isn't as hard as you make it out to be

if you cant do it on your own, then hire out. end of discussion really.

 

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[Chris_Willow]

I've learned to program HTML/CSS/PHP/SQL on a problem by problem basis.
Wanted to put up a website so figured out how to make one. Wanted to customize some functionality of a script, so figured it out.
When you deal with this stuff, you can absorb the knowledge without sitting down and learning it.

it really isn't as hard as you make it out to be

Exactly. You don't need to be a hardcore programmer to edit scripts, customize css or tweak designs. Those tasks are often too small to outsource for 10 bucks!

It helps with the speed of implementation also (unless you've got a full time programmer on staff).

 

[healthstatus]

Exactly. You don't need to be a hardcore programmer to edit scripts, customize css or tweak designs. Those tasks are often too small to outsource for 10 bucks!

This is NOT what I am talking about. I am not a lawyer, but I can tweak a contract. But I won't write one from scratch. I am not an accountant, but I can make a journal entry. I didn't spend months trying to learn those skills, they came along as I had more and more experience in business. I used to be a six figure programmer, but I don't do it anymore because it doesn't make sense. It makes more sense figuring out how to drive traffic, and how to convert that traffic to being a buyer (also known as marketing).

Think about it for at least ONE second, is it more important that your webpage render exactly the same on all browsers or to add a bullet point to your sales letter that increases conversions by half a percent?

 

[chuck8]

I love this kind of topic, full of different valid opinions

 

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[qhead]

I STRONGLY disagree. That was true before 2003, it isn't anymore. People won't tolerate shabby, buggy code. Hackers will feast on it.

Again, this depends on what you are doing. If you are planning to build a web service that handles personal data, then I agree. But if you are building iPhone game where you solve puzzles by moving blocks, who gives a shit if the code is crap if it works? No hacker will ever waste their time on trying to hack a puzzle game on iPhone and "people" sees the UI, not the code. Many of the systems you trust daily to handle your financial data (and in general many of the systems running public infrastructure) are running on old crappy code that was written by amateur in the late 90s and you don't care if they work. Make it pretty and nobody cares what the code looks like.

What you are saying is equal to saying that you shouldn't form a band before you can play like Kirk Hammett for the lack of better example. Playing like Hammett doesn't really matter if all you want to do is to create 3 chord punk songs.

 

[Skys]

What you are saying is equal to saying that you shouldn't form a band before you can play like Kirk Hammett for the lack of better example. Playing like Hammett doesn't really matter if all you want to do is to create 3 chord punk songs.

The people that make the most money with music, are the onces who formed a band for the love of music. They breath music, every second is spend on making music.. building songs.. That's awesome. It's passion. It's determination. Most started at a very young age and kept doing it for the love of it and because it's their entire way of living. They are also SICK good at it.

If coding is the same... then, you should do it for the love of coding. Because you love to code, you live code and you want to become the best at it. That's great. It's even a great reason to start.

But, this is an entrepreneur forum. And, you don't need to learn how to code to become a great entrepreneur. Atleast, from what I have learned so far from all the respected posters...: You want to become an entrepreneur, not a coder.
If you want to be a coder, that's great. Become one. But don't become a coder to become an entrepreneur. I think that's what Healthstatus is trying to say. I think he does explain himself very well, but for a lot of people it's just very hard to admit that their approach might be completely wrong.

 

[qhead]

But, this is an entrepreneur forum. And, you don't need to learn how to code to become a great entrepreneur. Atleast, from what I have learned so far from all the respected posters...: You want to become an entrepreneur, not a coder.
If you want to be a coder, that's great. Become one. But don't become a coder to become an entrepreneur. I think that's what Healthstatus is trying to say. I think he does explain himself very well, but for a lot of people it's just very hard to admit that their approach might be completely wrong.

I get what healthstatus is trying to say but in my not so humble opinion I think at least in the post I replied he is looking the whole thing thru too narrow lenses. There's so many different things you can do with coding skills as entrepreneur that saying nowadays you shouldn't even start unless you plan to become hardcore coder is just looking at it the wrong way.

No offense but every time I hear somebody claiming that one way is completely wrong I see red. Nothing is constant in the world and claiming somebody else's way is wrong is just dumb. You have no knowledge whatsoever about that person so how can you make the claim that you know what works for them when you don't even know what works for you before you try and fail?

You can absolutely become coder to become entrepreneur. Actually I would even recommend it especially if you know your business is going to be computer related.

 

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[Chris_Willow]

Think about it for at least ONE second, is it more important that your webpage render exactly the same on all browsers or to add a bullet point to your sales letter that increases conversions by half a percent?

Certainly you wouldn't want to post a project on elance for something as trivial as adding a bullet point...
This is where that basic knowledge comes in handy.

 

[healthstatus]

Certainly you wouldn't want to post a project on elance for something as trivial as adding a bullet point...
This is where that basic knowledge comes in handy.

I just said, that is NOT what I am talking about. :bgh:

I am talking to all the people that want to write their project or app from scratch and think that they will have the skills to undertake such a project with a few months of study. That is a waste of time, they will not have the skills to write the code for a quality, professional level project from scratch.

 

[enlightening]

When it comes to what us coders call "real coding", I fully agree. Yes you can learn to write something that does what you want when you use it. But when you get 1000 people using it you will have 2000 different situations that you have to handle and it takes a lot more experience to do that well. Beyond a certain point, the amount of work required to make something run using simple coding is infinite. But after only 10-15 years of trying you'll realize another approach that makes it more manageable

Another reason that this is misguided is that a lot of people who want to learn to code are thinking of a business that's "something like facebook.. or google.. or maybe both". Either that or targeting the app markets, which look like a bit of a lottery. The set of reliably successful businesses that can't be at least started and grown to a good size (where you can hire really experienced people) without high-level coding is pretty small. If you learn to code so you can start businesses you could easily find yourself chasing a lot of bad ideas just because you can and ignoring the many profit opportunities where your coding skills don't help you. Compare this to marketing skills, which limit you to only starting businesses where you can make a profit by selling something. (the horror...)

If you need to get into this, what you can do in much less time is understand at a high level how to work with it. There are good and bad ways to manage the coding process. You can find a million opinions on them out there, but they can all be learned through a bit of experience if you're willing to pay for the first few attempts. You need to find people you can trust, and then trust them, because a lot of the challenges and things that need to be done are hard to explain to non-coders.

If you want to get help on the cheap the easiest way might be to find a local student or new graduate who is really smart, creative, and motivated (maybe the top 1-5% of a college CS program) and have them work part-time/full-time for you. That way you can talk to them directly to explain what you want and understand what they tell you, and you can get someone who has a lot of free time. They will make mistakes but the best will figure out something they've never done before faster than the average 20-year pro (like I said there's a lot of stuff in coding that doesn't make sense from the outside).

The #1 sign of this is that they have built something fairly complicated on their own (best), for someone who hired them, or for a course (maybe acceptable if it's something really good). Class projects in hardware/assembly language/electronics engineering count for more than similar projects in programming/software development because there are so many shortcuts in software where they aren't doing the hard work. I created a 3d space combat video game with internet multiplayer and artificial intelligence in one semester, just for fun, because the courses were too simple. If they're doing that then (a) they're interested enough to go a long way, (b) they can do really hard coding and (c) they can probably learn any concepts needed to get to a higher level. Many many programmers complain about having a job where their opinions and technical knowledge aren't respected. if you want to motivate them keep that in mind.

But then there's the whole other side of coding that's mostly just HTML/simple forms (be very scared of anything that sends email. Spammers know more than you). You want to add a bullet point to a list? That's easier than learning to spell a full sentence correctly. Doesn't mean you have to either of those yourself...

If anyone has questions about coding I'm happy to explain more!

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I didn't spend months trying to learn those skills, they came along as I had more and more experience in business.

This is exactly how I learned to code -- I didn't sit down and "spend months" trying to learn. I learned by solving each incremental challenge.

is it more important that your webpage render exactly the same on all browsers

If 60% of the internet users can't even read the bullet point YOU added, then yes.

The great misconception you are fostering is that you think the learning process is this:

"I need to learn how to code" = SPEND MONTHS LEARNING.

When it really is:

"I need to figure out how to launch a website" = GET IT DONE NOW = LEARN ALONG THE WAY = SEE WHAT HAPPENS = LEARN = ADJUST = LEARN = ADJUST = LEARN. (Gee, after months of doing this, I actually know the language(s)!)

Every website, no matter how big or small, started SMALL and with just a few pages.

When I started, I knew NOTHING. By the time I finished, I was dangerous. All those skills still transcend today with today's technologies: JQuery, HTML5, CSS, etc. All in all -- I never once sat down and said "Gee, I need to learn how to program- I'd better spend a few months learning." If someone is taking this approach, I'd probably agree to say that the odds are a little worse for success.

 

[LamboMP]

Thank you MJ. However, healthstatus disagreed with this exact point I made above!

 

[healthstatus]

The great misconception you are fostering is that you think the learning process is this:

"I need to learn how to code" = SPEND MONTHS LEARNING.

....bunch of very valid points removed.......

If someone is taking this approach, I'd probably agree to say that the odds are a little worse for success.

That WAS the reason for the post, I saw several posts that had people saying exactly that. I don't know how to code, I am going to take a few months to learn and do the project myself, or worse, newbies coming in and people telling them that they will learn 95% of what they need to know about programming in a few weeks.

https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/education/41102-innovative-hr-product-programming-question.html (post #4)
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/fr...itional-b-m/36103-advice-web-development.html
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/internet-mobile-apps-software/35444-wanting-start-website.html (post #3)
https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/ge...hould-i-become-programmer-just-outsource.html (post #3)

The other subtle piece here is, that I used a MARKETING tactic to get a lot of people to pay attention, a controversial headline. The result is a remarkable number of posts in a VERY short amount of time. I pressed some emotional buttons, it is no different than the "Lose 9 pounds in 7 days" kind of headline. We got some AWESOME discussion, some excellent points, and if anyone really reads the thread they should come away knowing that it takes years to become a professional level programmer and there are many ways to go about getting code done, other than do it yourself.

 

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[healthstatus]

Thank you MJ. However, healthstatus disagreed with this exact point I made above!

Still do.... :smilielol:

 

[enlightening]

The other subtle piece here is, that I used a MARKETING tactic to get a lot of people to pay attention, a controversial headline. The result is a remarkable number of posts in a VERY short amount of time. I pressed some emotional buttons, it is no different than the "Lose 9 pounds in 7 days" kind of headline. We got some AWESOME discussion, some excellent points, and if anyone really reads the thread they should come away knowing that it takes years to become a professional level programmer and there are many ways to go about getting code done, other than do it yourself.

Good one healthstatus! You just taught a coder more about marketing...

 

[Eskil]

When it really is:

"I need to figure out how to launch a website" = GET IT DONE NOW = LEARN ALONG THE WAY = SEE WHAT HAPPENS = LEARN = ADJUST = LEARN = ADJUST = LEARN. (Gee, after months of doing this, I actually know the language(s)!)

Every website, no matter how big or small, started SMALL and with just a few pages.

When I started, I knew NOTHING. By the time I finished, I was dangerous. All those skills still transcend today with today's technologies: JQuery, HTML5, CSS, etc. All in all -- I never once sat down and said "Gee, I need to learn how to program- I'd better spend a few months learning." If someone is taking this approach, I'd probably agree to say that the odds are a little worse for success.

This is exactly it for me too!
Granted, I went to college and studied computer science where we learned about all kinds of obscure programming languages. A whole bunch of stuff I would NEVER end up having any use for. Fortran, Pascal, Assembler code,.....Lol wtf. Waste of time.

But the stuff I have learned in the last few years working with HTML, PHP and CSS stuff has really just been incremental learning that has come from my own NEED to fix things. If I thought I could to it myself in reasonable time - I did it and made myself learn it. If it's obvious that the task is more complicated, and if it makes more sense to spend money on a coder to save my own productive time - I will do that too in some cases.

Never again will I sit down and set aside days and weeks to study coding just to learn it. Time is too valuable for that, so learn as you go - and hire someone when you don't want to waste too much of your time!

 

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[PatrickP]

This is exactly it for me too!
Granted, I went to college and studied computer science where we learned about all kinds of obscure programming languages. A whole bunch of stuff I would NEVER end up having any use for. Fortran, Pascal, Assembler code,.....Lol wtf. Waste of time.

But the stuff I have learned in the last few years working with HTML, PHP and CSS stuff has really just been incremental learning that has come from my own NEED to fix things. If I thought I could to it myself in reasonable time - I did it and made myself learn it. If it's obvious that the task is more complicated, and if it makes more sense to spend money on a coder to save my own productive time - I will do that too in some cases.

Never again will I sit down and set aside days and weeks to study coding just to learn it. Time is too valuable for that, so learn as you go - and hire someone when you don't want to waste too much of your time!

lol I took BASIC back when you actually had to use a machine to punch holes in a card for EVERY line of code. You would take all your cards, put a rubber band around them and leave them in the 'computer room' for a tech person to take them all in the back and run your program. Usually 8 hours later you would get your cards and a print out. If your first line had an error, the print out would show something like 100 ERROR So you would go make a new card and submit the stack of cards.

BUT if you missed the next card collection they didn't run the cards for another 8 hours and if you missed that time then you had to wait until the next day.

As you can guess with only getting 2 tries per day it was tough to get a program turned in on time if you were making more than 3 mistakes in the entire program lol

 

[samjohn]

Learning the basics is useful regardless, if only so you can better communicate ideas to your programmer. But you learn that along the way. Taking time out to study is just wasting time.

 

[chubbyrain]

Whilst I agree to some extent about coding - sometimes it's benefitial to learn certain programming softwares that can help benefit your market.

For example - I use a tool that allows me to automate various web tasks. Take today's application I created. I wanted to find all the most "thanked" posts inside this forum, as being a noob to Fast Lane Forum I thought I'd help myself by jumping straight to the threads with the most likes/thanks before I start browsing the rest of the forum. This thread came up for me at 141 thanks. Considerably a lot more than the ones proceeding it.

Amount of time it took me to make? About 45 mins. I would estimate a considerable amount of time less than it would take for me to wade through all the threads to find the highly thanked posts. Of course I am not negating the value inside the lower thanked posts either.

Now, I am NOT a programmer by any means. In fact I picked up designing these web automation tasks as a)I have my finger on the pulse and know what's out there for doing web automation) and b) finidng an outsourcer is just too labour intensive.

I actually enjoy the programming. I am also a marketing consultant who runs a business along with hiring staff members.

I get immense pleasure out of speaking with my clients to find out what ways they would like to help stream line their business... and I have total control over the conversation and can steer it to how I can offer them an automated web solution. Sometimes they simply want to track a competitor's pricing and be notified only upon price changes. Other times it can be automated whole installations of services. None the less it is programming and I tend to do it. Why? It's not that I can't "write sales pages and copy" - it's because I have a great customer base who listen to what I have to say.

Also, these very same customers are an excellent sounding board...

"What problems do you currently have that take you too long to complete that could be done by someone else?"

This usually gets me a flurry of responses and therefore an idea for either a custom solution or a tool I can promote for everyone.

Anyhow just wanted to chime in.This looks like an interesting thread and the 141 thanks I found didn't tell me different

First post here on the Fast Lane - looking forward to chatting with you all.

Edit: Make that 142 Likes

 

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[chubbyrain]

Is that how you hire an attorney? You learn the basics of corporate structure, non-disclosure agreements, contract law, then you go hire an attorney. Don't tell me it is completely different. It ISN'T.

For me, yes. I like to know as much as I can about what I'm discussing with a legal professional. I take some time before hand to research what it is I need, giving specific examples in law to how I see my problem being resolved. Often times its a conversation with the attorney where I understand what they will say and I can offer up a solution/idea to help with their thinking. My reason for doing this is simple. I've waisted too much of my life listening to "professionals" only to be let down and have to start again. This small bit of research on legal and other topics helps me fast track my understanding and can therefore make accurate informed decisions on outcomes.

For example, on initial meeting with attorney they informed me my legal issue would not stand due to a particular reason. However, I argued a different scenario for the same problem, which they then agreed was a good way to approach this.
This does not say the attorney was wrong, it's more saying that he was thinking the same usual answers for my problem, and human nature teaches me we humans will go for the path of least resistance, which he did.
I spent probably 2 hours research on my legal issue which had I not done would have settled with the attorney's initlal answer.

Education is power. 80/20 rule. Be the 20.

 

[SeanKelly]

Coding? Leave it to the pros. As an entrepreneur, time and skills need to be delegated appropriately. Learning to code something impressive is not an easy task, so why add that extra stress onto already difficult entrepreneurial goals?