Learning to Program: How Should I Start on This Project?

#1

Post by lauraannmorris » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 1:57 PM UTC

Hi HN, I've come to the conclusion that I need to learn to program. (Know it's debatable whether bix/mkting folks should waste their time learning, but I want to learn anyway.)

I have a pet project that I’d like to build, but could use your help determining which language is best for me to start with and what online resources I should prioritize. Should note that I’ve done some homework here: I took MIT’s Intro to Computer Programming (Python) class via Udemy and I completed the Rails for Zombies tutorial.But, while I can go through those exercises OK enough, I’m stuck when it comes to putting it all together and building something useful… that’s where I could use your help.

I want to be able to build a form with multiple data entry types that automatically emails certain groups of people based on data submitted. Simple, yeah? (I hope.)

Any recommendations on where to start with this project? Know Railscasts has a series of episodes all about forms … but is that better for this project than Python or some other language/set of resources?

Thanks in advance for your help – know the “how do I learn to program” question gets asked quite a bit around here… Laura

Re: Learning to Program: How Should I Start on This Project?

#2

Post by Brewer » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 2:16 PM UTC

Assuming you want to save the data you need to look into databases. MySQL is tried and true, but NoSQL database (MongoDB, for example) are hot right now.

Re: Learning to Program: How Should I Start on This Project?

#3

Post by karterk » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 2:28 PM UTC

You might want to read this article first: http://www.shubharamani.com/wordpress/?p=31

It summarizes some of the challenges you will face as you go about building your vision into an actual product.

The hardest part is getting started, and it's great that you have already crossed that bridge. I know a lot of people on HN here will disagree with me - but if you want to just dip your feet and start hacking around - PHP will be a very nice option for you. PHP is rather simple and will allow you to start building things and getting basic stuff like how the web works (HTTP requests, responses, page loads etc.).

As mentioned in the article, you also need to know a decent amount of HTML and CSS for basic formatting of your page. Or, you can find a template (plenty online) which you can modify.

Finally - if you want to do something like emailing people etc. - it involves learning a bit about how web hosting works. This is another place where PHP might be helpful as most web hosts support PHP by default.

There is no one true way to go about learning stuff. Be prepared to be patient and learn by exploring rather than trying to read tutorials and trying to get a hang of everything at once.

Re: Learning to Program: How Should I Start on This Project?

#4

Post by btc_man » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 3:05 PM UTC

You should start with Ruby, Rails, SASS for css, HAML for html, you should write your code in Aptana Studio, and deploy with Engine Yard or Heroku, Aptana has deployment wizards for both. Oh, and GIT for version control.

Re: Learning to Program: How Should I Start on This Project?

#5

Post by poissonpie » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 3:59 PM UTC

btc_man wrote: post #4

You should start with Ruby, Rails, SASS for css, HAML for html, you should write your code in Aptana Studio, and deploy with Engine Yard or Heroku, Aptana has deployment wizards for both. Oh, and GIT for version control.

I have to say that's a mouthful for anyone to learn when all they want to do is get a form up and running. I think it sets up a barrier to getting something going for a rank beginner.

My personal suggestion is to go with Python on google app engine. Use a simple text editor. The implementation is simple and has slightly less "magic" going on than Ruby on Rails. Once you've got it running in GAE, you'll have a better understanding of the request/response cycle and an appreciation of getting variables from forms manually. Then do the same project in Rails (or Django if you prefer Python). Once you understand the manual approach of dealing with forms, you will have an appreciation of what's going on behind the scenes when Rails magically does some processing for you.

After that you can iterate again and add to your skills learning about SASS, HAML, finding the "perfect" IDE etc.

Start as simply as possible, learn a little about what is going on behind the scenes, then grab tools that help you automate the boring bits.

In fact, if you didn't already know some Python and Ruby on Rails, I would suggest just hacking out some nasty PHP to get up and running (simply because it is so widely supported and saves a lot of deployment hassle when you just want to get the thing working)

Re: Learning to Program: How Should I Start on This Project?

#6

Post by dstein » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 4:02 PM UTC

btc_man wrote: post #4

You should start with Ruby, Rails, SASS for css, HAML for html, you should write your code in Aptana Studio, and deploy with Engine Yard or Heroku, Aptana has deployment wizards for both. Oh, and GIT for version control.

I hope that was satire. He needs to learn how to write HTML forms by hand, and a script to process the submissions. In that case, Rails MVC + SASS + HAML would be an absolutely abysmal way to learn how to do it.

Python and barebones html form processing would be the place to start.

Re: Learning to Program: How Should I Start on This Project?

#7

Post by dstein » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 4:03 PM UTC

poissonpie wrote: post #5

btc_man wrote: post #4

You should start with Ruby, Rails, SASS for css, HAML for html, you should write your code in Aptana Studio, and deploy with Engine Yard or Heroku, Aptana has deployment wizards for both. Oh, and GIT for version control.

I have to say that's a mouthful for anyone to learn when all they want to do is get a form up and running. I think it sets up a barrier to getting something going for a rank beginner. My personal suggestion is to go with Python on google app engine. Use a simple text editor. The implementation is simple and has slightly less "magic" going on than Ruby on Rails. Once you've got it running in GAE, you'll have a better…

  google app engine

No beginner programmer should be doing anything on a cloud platform. You need to learn how to run a webserver locally first.

Re: Learning to Program: How Should I Start on This Project?

#8

Post by swalkergibson » Wed, Jul 13, 2011, 7:28 PM UTC

You should absolutely learn how to program! As someone who was in your position three years ago, I can categorically tell you that learning to program is one of the best decisions I have ever made. My suggestion is the following - try and find a friend who is willing to be your tutor. It will help you immensely to have someone there who presumably knows the ropes and can walk you through the process and answer questions in real-time. Programming, especially when you are learning, can be intensely aggravating and you can lose interest very quickly if you have hit a seemingly insurmountable roadblock and have no one to fall back on.

Re: Learning to Program: How Should I Start on This Project?

#9

Post by lauraannmorris » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 8:52 AM UTC

Thanks so much for your feedback. To start, I'm going to follow @poisonpie´s advice and use GAE since I have some basic familiarity with Python. And will be sure to read up on how web hosting works -- hadnt even thought about that piece of the puzzle yet. And @swalkergibson will def be providing plenty of beer+pizza for a couple coder friends who've offered to help if I get stuck. Will let you know how it goes! Thanks again.

Re: Learning to Program: How Should I Start on This Project?

#10

Post by kplusd » Thu, Jul 14, 2011, 11:03 AM UTC

Just a short note: I think that its just awesome that you want to learn how to program. (I assume that you are a girl). We need way more female builders!