To code or not to code?

[DeletedUser2]

I say coding is a commodity. In half the time it takes some one to learn to code i can build a data base of good coders.

You can learn to lay bricks and any time yo want to build something you can lay out some bricks fast

But building a larger business that's a better skillset to learn. The more you code the less time you are using your head for the real thinking work of building a business.

As a landlord I realized I was losing money every time I picked up a paint brush. Because I could paint I did. What I realized however, was my job needed to be focused on buying more properties. When painting I saved a few bucks. But I missed out on making 70,000$ by not buying another property

When you rely on the quick fix of coding yourself. Your limiting your true earning potential

Z

 

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[Daniel A]

I voted:


B. A Little: Know Your Way Around

Here's why:

"Learn the basics – with most forms of marketing, you’ll need to learn how to modify basic HTML code and upload changes. You can either watch YouTube videos on these topics, or you can just signup for Treehouse to learn HTML." ... (Or Code.org, Or Codecademy - this is where I will learn, plus in university most likely). I trust Neil Patel.

Quoted from #1 of his blog post: http://www.quicksprout.com/2013/12/16/how-i-learned-online-marketing-and-how-you-can-too/

 

[James Fake]

I agree 99.7% with you @zen******* - except 'coding is a commodity' lol.

But yes, I am a full proponent of 'working on the business and not in the business'.. 'steering the ship, and not grabbing the oars'.. and that's the delegation/automation mode I do immediately after I create a working version MVP. During development (when outsourced), there's not much to do after building the front-end landing pages, social media accounts, couple blitz seo work, etc. It's pretty much a waiting game after that work is done, twiddling your thumbs, and forcing yourself to find things to do (busy work, not productive work) and making plans for "real" marketing thats done when you actually have a working product and users. There is one thing I do at the same time I program an MVP; it's usually trying to write bad a$$ content.. but even then; after about 30 articles, I'll switch lanes, let it build organically, then return to it afterwards. No point in promoting the great content just yet, bringing in traffic and not being able to capitalize it fully cause there's no actual app yet.

 

[James Fake]

I trust Neil Patel.

Met him couple weeks ago... really, really funny guy. He's in a much different position than most bootstrapped non-programmers are though, so I wouldn't take everything he says and think it all applies the same. (in the web app world anyways... but if it's affiliate marketing where it's mostly landing pages and content blogs then B is bombs away best route. I think the OP is aiming at major 'Zuck' apps though)

 

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[Daniel A]

Met him couple weeks ago... really, really funny guy. He's in a much different position than most bootstrapped non-programmers are though, so I wouldn't take everything he says and think it all applies the same. (in the web app world anyways... but if it's affiliate marketing where it's mostly landing pages and content blogs then B is bombs away best route. I think the OP is aiming at major 'Zuck' apps though)

Damn that's awesome! Was it at an internet marketing conference or something? If you just Google his name the pictures that come up on Google Images give that impression too. He just looks goofy. The ones that come up for my name...none of them are me. I need to fix that :joyful:

Ohhhh, I see now and I agree. For affiliate marketing it makes sense and that's what I will be applying it for, and maybe even to my personal blog (which I am setting up) to sell my own stuff in the future.

I don't think I will be spending too much time learning coding or programming. Plus I just don't see myself creating an app from scratch, haha. Maybe if I learn, but I think hiring people to do that would be better.

I listened to an interview with a guy who I never heard of (before the interview of course). The guy does not know how to code. I believe he hired someone from the Ukraine or Russia to create his first app for a few hundred. Now he has a portfolio of apps and is making so much money he doesn't want to disclose income figures haha. Here's the link:

I will be looking into apps more in the future.

 

[James Fake]

@DanielTArgueta - great vid. Yeah; it was an internet marketing conference in San Diego by Digital Marketers.. you're in Cali? Man, you GOT to come next year. I had so many aha moments I'll be applying to sites throughout this year. Thing called 'Warroom'; those guys are SHARP. Like imagine the top 1% from Warriorforums, etc. all in one room sharing ideas, each of them make well over $1M a year passive income.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

If one decides to learn how to code, what should it be?

Interesting data to help you decide.

http://www.sitepoint.com/best-programming-language-learn-2014/

And learning one of the TOP language is something I would consider a "fall-back" -- not some useless philosophy degree from a liberal arts college.

 

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[Serito]

If one decides to learn how to code, what should it be?

Interesting data to help you decide.

http://www.sitepoint.com/best-programming-language-learn-2014/

And learning one of the TOP language is something I would consider a "fall-back" -- not some useless philosophy degree from a liberal arts college.

Mmm... data was collected from Jobs Tractor. If I understand correctly, the "best programming language to learn" is the one which most likely would give you a job as developer, having the highest number of jobs advertised.

But... we don't want jobs here, right?

So... the fact that "Java for Android has overtaken SQL", for example, is totally useless.

You'd better not choose languages to learn by the number of open jobs position.

Consider, instead, their field of application. And "one" is not enough.

 

[healthstatus]

Interesting data to help you decide.

And in 1998-1999 Cobol would have been high on the list to fix all the millennium bugs.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

. If I understand correctly, the "best programming language to learn" is the one which most likely would give you a job as developer, having the highest number of jobs advertised.

Correct, which is why I stated this is a better "fall back" than some worthless college degree. The best argument people have for "should I go to college" is "Oh, it's a great fall-back!" -- Fall back? Yea, sure, if you're falling back into a job waiting tables.

And in 1998-1999 Cobol would have been high on the list to fix all the millennium bugs.

But this isn't 1999.

 

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[James Fake]

PHP. Most versatile in my opinion, both as a skill set to 'fall back' to; but also giving you enough ability to create most ideas into reality.

 

[HappyFighter]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CEJW3Z0/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

I got this book when it was free (reading it now). Even for a person with some technical skills like me, it's a good and non-biased overview of the various programming languages and tools being used now.

 

[Daniel A]

@DanielTArgueta - great vid. Yeah; it was an internet marketing conference in San Diego by Digital Marketers.. you're in Cali? Man, you GOT to come next year. I had so many aha moments I'll be applying to sites throughout this year. Thing called 'Warroom'; those guys are SHARP. Like imagine the top 1% from Warriorforums, etc. all in one room sharing ideas, each of them make well over $1M a year passive income.

Wow, I am interested in going there the next time it happens! Next year then right (Annual Event)? I really do need to start meeting other like-minded people face-to-face/in-person. I recently heard of one local guy that is entrepreneurial minded who graduated university recently. That alone was great news. I'm definitely up for meeting more people especially at organized events.

PS: I was in SoCal with family last weekend. My little cousin and I started practicing some "coding" at Code.org when I was there to complete the "hour of code". What I was doing wasn't really coding though, it was kiddish and I was just connecting blocks but I guess it's a start haha. For the next few months I am going to focus on developing other skills though. Ones that I can put to use quicker.

 

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[zzaxx]

I like these threads. Been following "Learning to Program is Stupid!" for months. Generally, i think Healthstatus is right. If you're not a programmer now, learning to be one is a long road, and won't get you in the Fastlane sooner. And if your app is supporting a business system, that system is your IP and the code is just instantiating it in the world.

That being said, I'm coding for my infant business. Because it's a creative endeavor that requires a lot of trial and error. Because I'm merging education and gaming in a product. Because my wife is the artist and she doesn't work linearly. Because I do a lot of text-fix-text-fix-etc.... Because it's fun. Because I'm trying to make original IP.

But once the prototype is done, the look and feel are right, I will outsource everything. Five months to launch. We'll see how it goes...

 

[freelife2014]

I think it's cool to write code!!

To start with:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/healthstatus-healthtracker/id667949598?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo=4

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/healthcalcs/id366653950?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo=4


I started writing code in 1979, I made a 6 figure living off of it for a long time. Last week I was in a meeting with some guys talking about Hadoop and "big data" structures, I did not have a clue WTF they were talking. But you know what? I don't care. I know what is supposed to come out on the other end, I can describe what they get to start with, and what they are supposed to end with. Makes no difference to me the road traveled to get there as long as it is reliable and predictable.

 

[Royael]

B) A little - thats the way to go.

Why? Because delegating/outsourcing is the key for fastlaners but knowhow is also important to even be able to do so. Therefore you should have a very basic understanding of how something works and how something could be improved. Also you should be able to fix some little bugs/make some simple tweaks on your own - not to be 100% dependent on your programmer for each and every tiny thing.

 

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[FastLaner007]

Thing called 'Warroom'; those guys are SHARP. Like imagine the top 1% from Warriorforums, etc. all in one room sharing ideas, each of them make well over $1M a year passive income.

Just signed up for their 7 day trial as your testimonial piqued my interest as to what fastlane ideas they could be discussing and I just found out that their ideas mostly are hardly fastlane. Most attribute to affiliate marketing and internet marketing. I am never gonna go past their free trial. My god, I am so glad to even be part of TMF's public forum, let alone the Insider's subscription which I am already a member of.

Advice for other TMFers: If you want to save yourself the trouble of puking at the amount of "Guru" junk found all over the Warrior Forum, then please stay away from that forum as it is full of over hyped and self proclaimed "GURUS" that @MJ DeMarco points so many times to in his book. There may be a few gems in the millions of spammy threads of their warrior forum, but one single gold thread from TMF forum can outweigh all of their gems any day. I dare you guys!!

 

[Ninjakid]

Ask yourself "what is the objective?"

Then discover if learning to code is a necessary means to achieve that objective.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

Just want to thank you guys for extending this existing/older thread (Re: Do I code or not?) instead of starting a whole new thread. Makes me happy.

 

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[Emanuel]

In almost every other forum, you're warned when you suddenly decide to bump up an old topic instead of starting a new one. I never understood that.

 

[samuraijack]

@healthstatus

I'm not sure if your mobile apps are still an active product but I just took a look at both of them and they seem VERY simple to make, and this coming from someone who just started Android programming around 2 months ago. Please correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you have a decade of programming experience, why not throw this app together in a week or less instead of paying 4k (I'm assuming this price from a previous post I saw).

Aside from the code, the health calculations are also very easy to come by (I'm from a healthcare background), again PLEASE correct me if I am wrong.

 

[healthstatus]

why not throw this app together in a week or less

Let's see: UI design for 3 different screen formats old iphone, retina and ipad, imperial and metric unit support, 6 calculators with at least one input screen (some 2) for each (in all three UI formats), calculation results, info/registration screen, testing on three devices, fixing, testing on three devices, and this is just for the iOS version, we had another 2 UI designs for Android phone and tablet. Plus to do Apple you have to buy their developer kit, a current Mac computer to run it and upload it to the iTunes store. Also bear in mind that was written 5 years ago, there weren't nearly as many nifty little toolkits to whip up an app with, you either did native or you had an HTML app.

If that still sounds like a weeks work to you, this is exactly why I started the Learning to Program is Stupid thread. People starting vastly underestimate the requirements, UI design, error checking, testing, multiple device support never enter the conversation.

 

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[csalvato]

Let's see: UI design for 3 different screen formats old iphone, retina and ipad, imperial and metric unit support, 6 calculators with at least one input screen (some 2) for each (in all three UI formats), calculation results, info/registration screen, testing on three devices, fixing, testing on three devices, and this is just for the iOS version, we had another 2 UI designs for Android phone and tablet. Plus to do Apple you have to buy their developer kit, a current Mac computer to run it and upload it to the iTunes store. Also bear in mind that was written 5 years ago, there weren't nearly as many nifty little toolkits to whip up an app with, you either did native or you had an HTML app.

If that still sounds like a weeks work to you, this is exactly why I started the Learning to Program is Stupid thread. People starting vastly underestimate the requirements, UI design, error checking, testing, multiple device support never enter the conversation.

Yup, even as a Computer Engineer (code monkey) I always grossly underestimate the amount of time things will take.

Just the other week one of my VAs was going "slow" on an excel editing task. I decided to write a script to do it myself. Six hours later, after haggling with ruby plugins, eccentricities in file types, etc. I still hadn't finished. Passed it off to my VA again and $10 later it was done.

 

[ilrein]

What else should I do?

Every option schools offer is garbage. Not interested in being an accountant or a dentist.

Should I try to start some business? I have no capital for anything. Could I bootstrap something and make it happen? It's not impossible. Is it going to be freakin' hard? Yes.

At least if I learn to code...I can look for work that isn't mind blowingly bad. I can (try) to start a tech company based on a web app or native app, which I won't need $$ to outsource.

Really, for a young, broke guy, without a clear business in mind, it's probably your best option.

 

[csalvato]

What else should I do?

Every option schools offer is garbage. Not interested in being an accountant or a dentist.

Should I try to start some business? I have no capital for anything. Could I bootstrap something and make it happen? It's not impossible. Is it going to be freakin' hard? Yes.

At least if I learn to code...I can look for work that isn't mind blowingly bad. I can (try) to start a tech company based on a web app or native app, which I won't need $$ to outsource.

Really, for a young, broke guy, without a clear business in mind, it's probably your best option.

You have no other experience that is valuable? No other skills companies or people can use?

 

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[ilrein]

Sure, im super personable, my English is great, my Russian is not bad. I can present publicly, im computer-savvy, I learn fast. My arithmetic is fine. I like meeting people, debating philosophy, and admiring genius.

Where does that get me? A sales job? Some office duties where I can rise up to be a project manager? Really, if you are not between 18-25, recently out of school, you don't know what a state of disarray the job market is. I've gotten a lot of interviews in a few months of being a web dev.

 

[ColbyG]

I've been dipping my toe in the coding water a little bit lately (a few hours here and there), but today I decided to get stuck in and I've done roughly 16 hours of Java (following along with Lynda vids), and its bloody hard. With basically no coding background beyond the tiny amount I've done at uni, it feels like I know nothing. Very disheartening. Gonna try again tomorrow.

 

[lowtek]

I've been dipping my toe in the coding water a little bit lately (a few hours here and there), but today I decided to get stuck in and I've done roughly 16 hours of Java (following along with Lynda vids), and its bloody hard. With basically no coding background beyond the tiny amount I've done at uni, it feels like I know nothing. Very disheartening. Gonna try again tomorrow.

You DID pick one of the harder languages to start with, but Java is a fine choice so I would say just keep going.

That being said, your approach to learning is wrong. It seems reasonable, because we've become accustomed to living that scripted life where we learn from teachers in a classroom. Unfortunately, it's probably not how you learn most effectively.

If you wanted to build a bird house, would you spend days watching videos and then starting? Or would you watch a little bit of content to get the basic idea, and then just start building one and see what happens? I'm guessing you would do the latter.

Programming is no different.

Here are some better ways to learn:

1) get on hacker rank and solve their algorithm problems using java - definitely do this an hour a day
2) make a simple android app that you can use to keep track of time spent on various activities
3) write an interpreter for a BASIC type programming language (i.e. implement BASIC in java)
4) write a simple pong game using some graphics library ( teaches you to use an API )

Point is to pick something that actually forces you to think about how to program, rather than the syntax. Programming is not syntax - it is breaking down a problem into bite sized steps so that a computer can understand it. The syntax can be looked up as you go, and you will eventually learn it through repetition.

If you insist on using the classes ( can't give up that crutch ) then take the projects they make you do, and start over from scratch and do it without looking. At least you'll have a template to cheat off when you get stuck.

 

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[ColbyG]

You DID pick one of the harder languages to start with, but Java is a fine choice so I would say just keep going.

That being said, your approach to learning is wrong. It seems reasonable, because we've become accustomed to living that scripted life where we learn from teachers in a classroom. Unfortunately, it's probably not how you learn most effectively.

If you wanted to build a bird house, would you spend days watching videos and then starting? Or would you watch a little bit of content to get the basic idea, and then just start building one and see what happens? I'm guessing you would do the latter.

Programming is no different.

Here are some better ways to learn:

1) get on hacker rank and solve their algorithm problems using java - definitely do this an hour a day
2) make a simple android app that you can use to keep track of time spent on various activities
3) write an interpreter for a BASIC type programming language (i.e. implement BASIC in java)
4) write a simple pong game using some graphics library ( teaches you to use an API )

Point is to pick something that actually forces you to think about how to program, rather than the syntax. Programming is not syntax - it is breaking down a problem into bite sized steps so that a computer can understand it. The syntax can be looked up as you go, and you will eventually learn it through repetition.

If you insist on using the classes ( can't give up that crutch ) then take the projects they make you do, and start over from scratch and do it without looking. At least you'll have a template to cheat off when you get stuck.

I totally agree with your method, and I have been coding as much as I can. But at the moment I don't even know what's possible and I don't know any syntax at all. So it would be pointless for me to try and build a bird house without any wood.

This morning I didn't know what an activity was. The purpose of today was for me to break down that barrier of basic knowledge so I know the right questions to ask, where to find answers and most importantly be able to understand the answers.

I have a fairly free day tomorrow so I'll be getting into some real coding.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

[techies]

Well, I'd like to build a reasonably big company lol.


Thanks for the thread link btw!

If you want to build a reasonably big tech company, I'd say learn to code.