If you'll permit me to be annoyingly geeky, "That's good. You have taken your first step into a larger world." :)
Achievement unlocked! Startup Padawan ranked attained!
Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.
11–20 of 43 posts
Re: Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.
#12I would venture to say that you knew programming, you just didn't know coding. Organizing a good program is not all that different from organizing a good business.
Re: Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
My cofounders were C# guys. One new benefit I thought of recently was that C# is similar to Java and thats what mobile apps are coded apart from Objective-C. Who says the MVP has to be a webapp? :) In anycase, my thinking was just get started first. Im probably going to dabble in Python or Ruby (probably Python) just to see what its like at some point. But for the time being, just getting my head down and writing cod…
If you're interested in web scraping, take a look at Mechanize (it's available for Perl, Python, and Ruby, at least, though I prefer Ruby) - it makes web scraping trivial .
Im not interested in web scraping per se but in my previous gig, I was doing erm some 'marketing' through social networks and I was frustrated at not being able to contribute more actively to the process. The marketing work was essentially a programmers job.
So its nice to be able to look under the hood now and see whats going on!
Re: Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.
#14Good for you. Personal development never ends.
Re: Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.
#15Congrats. Programming is made out to be a hard thing and for people who don't think logically it is. But to a logically thinking person it's like the greatest game you'll ever discover.
I was intimidated for the longest time about picking it up. Partly because I wasn't spectacular at math or algebra or statistics and all the arcane calculus.
Part of the perfectionist in me was also trying to understand everything that happened. Like what actually happens when I enter Console.WriteLine("Hello world");? That is always going to be a losing better so I've since subscribed to the "I know how to drive but I don't know how a car operates" school of thought.
Somewhere along the way, I realised programming isnt about hardcore math but more like just grouping actions together in a logical manner.
Re: Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.
#16Your next step on the path to being a hacker is to share your work. Where can we see your "web scraper" in action?
I don't know where can I post it? Probably post it to my blog once I've commented it up. Heading out for dinner with the gf so check later! FYI, it looks like a thing of beauty to me but it probably looks like dogshit to the pros. lol.
Re: Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.
#17Your next step on the path to being a hacker is to share your work. Where can we see your "web scraper" in action?
I don't know where can I post it? Probably post it to my blog once I've commented it up. Heading out for dinner with the gf so check later! FYI, it looks like a thing of beauty to me but it probably looks like dogshit to the pros. lol.
Github! If you're coding, you need to learn source control yesterday, and it makes sharing your code easy to boot. :)
Re: Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.
#18Congrats. Programming is made out to be a hard thing and for people who don't think logically it is. But to a logically thinking person it's like the greatest game you'll ever discover.
I was intimidated for the longest time about picking it up. Partly because I wasn't spectacular at math or algebra or statistics and all the arcane calculus. Part of the perfectionist in me was also trying to understand everything that happened. Like what actually happens when I enter Console.WriteLine("Hello world");? That is always going to be a losing better so I've since subscribed to the "I know how to drive but…
Perhaps programming doesn't resemble your perception of the maths you've been exposed to, but honestly all of maths is grouping together actions in a logical way. Programming is very much a certain kind of mathematics (though if it helps to think of them as distinct, by all means do so!).
I relate very much to your perfectionist statement. Keep in mind that each thing you learn about how the underlying machine operates will make you a more effective programmer. Learn about the craft of programming (patterns of design, abstraction, etc.), but don't lose sight of the fact that programs run on physical machines, and our bound by the properties of those machines.
Re: Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.
#19I did almost this exact same thing back in 2005. I had not programmed anything in YEARS and I had to help write part of a system that performed DB queries, screen scraped, file transfers, etc.
In a 24 period I tried Java, Perl and Python and in the end Python won by miles and miles. I now use Python daily for all sorts of tasks. I love it.
Re: Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.
#20> To all business MBA guys learning to code: you can do it! just get started!!
No, all of you can't. But it's not a bad idea to try and see if you think you'd like it!
I am reminded of the half-joking book title: "Learn to Program in 21 Years".