How to

Teach Yourself to Code.

How to Teach
Yourself to Code
Now on

Part 1:
Stop Waiting for the
Perfect Technical CoFounder and Start
Learning How to Code

Why learn how to code?

A lot of you just have

an idea

If youre expecting to find someone

to build that idea for you, its

never going to happen

Demand for developers has

skyrocketed

Think about it

Anyone with any programming

talent is getting offers from
Facebook, Google and dozens of
other startups right now

Why should a programmer choose

your idea over any other?

Well, what if I
pay someone?

1) You will pay too much

1) You will pay too much

2) Youll be unhappy with the process

1) You will pay too much

2) Youll be unhappy with the process
3) Youll get something back you didnt want

WHY?

WHY?

Software is hard to estimate

WHY?

Software is hard to estimate

Should this really take 15 hours, or
am I getting ripped off?

If youre an entrepreneur waiting for

someone to execute your idea for you,

youre not an entrepreneur

If youre an entrepreneur waiting for

someone to execute your idea for you,

youre not an entrepreneur

(sorry)

Pre-Dodgeball I went through 3-4 years thinking I

was going to meet some magical engineer who
would build all the stuff I was thinking about. But I
never met that person, so I taught myself ASP and
MS Access out of a book and got to work just
hacking stuff together. Im still a really shitty
programmer but I know enough to hack a prototype
together.

- Dennis Crowley, Foursquare

Learning how to code

!=
How to be a software engineer

The point is for you to learn to

code well enough to

build a prototype

The point is for you to learn to

code well enough to

build a prototype
(aka Minimum Viable Product)

MVP = quick + dirty

Product with the fewest

number of features needed to
achieve a specific objective.
The Entrepreneurs Guide to Customer Development

Side note: build products that are

valuable despite being ugly

Eventually youll need to

find a lead developer

Knowing how to code helps you

find, pitch and manage good
developers

More and more, the things we

interact with in the world around
us qualifies as

technology

There are 10 kinds of people:

There are 10 kinds of people:

Those who understand binary
and those who dont

Society is quickly dividing

into two groups:
1)

Those that know how to code

they can manipulate the very structure
of the world around them.

2)

Those that dont their lives are

being designed and directed by
those that do.

If youre interested in learning more, read Program or Be Programmed: http://amzn.to/yzd6hm

Part 2:
Choosing a
Programming
Language

I get it,
its scary to

jump in.

C, Java, C++, PHP, JavaScript, Python, C#,

Perl, SQL, Ruby, Shell, Visual Basic,
Assembly, Actionscript, Objective C, Lisp,
Where do you start? Delphi, Pascal, Scheme,
Haskell, Tcl, Fortran, Ada, Lua, ColdFusion,
Cobol, Erlang, D, Scala, Smalltalk, Ocaml,
Forth, Rexx.

Breaking down a web application

Web applications are applications

accessed over the internet

The front-end is what you see

Web Pages

Front-end languages:
HTML
CSS
JavaScript

The back-end is what you dont see

Web Pages

Rules

Programming languages:
PHP, Ruby, Python

Database

Database languages:
SQL

Theyre all the same, just different

PHP
echo Hello World;

Hello World

Python
print(Hello World)

Hello World

Ruby
puts Hello World

Hello World

And then there are

web application frameworks

Web Pages

Rules

Database

Web application frameworks: Ruby on Rails, Django

Web application frameworks

alleviate overhead associated with web
development by providing libraries for
database access, templating frameworks,
and session management. Blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah.

Web application frameworks

alleviate overhead associated with web
development by providing libraries for
database access, templating frameworks,
and session management. Blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah.

build web apps

really quickly

If your goal is to build a

prototype, start with

Ruby on Rails

(aka Rails)

Ruby on Rails
is a web application framework

for Ruby

Rails is the easiest to dive into

Rails is the easiest to dive into

(tons of resources and a huge community)

Rails hides all the stuff you really

dont need to know

Rails is just shortcuts like this

rails new application

create
create README.rdoc
create Rakefile
create config.ru
create .gitignore
create Gemfile
create app
create app/assets/images/rails.png
create app/assets/javascripts/application.js
create app/assets/stylesheets/application.css
create app/controllers/application_controller.rb
create app/helpers/application_helper.rb
create app/mailers
create app/models
create app/views/layouts/application.html.erb
create app/mailers/.gitkeep
create app/models/.gitkeep
create config
create config/routes.rb
create config/application.rb
create config/environment.rb
.
.
.
create vendor/plugins
create vendor/plugins/.gitkeep
run bundle install

So you can do stuff like this

Theres a temptation for

programmers to say
Start with PHP or Java

They say this because:

1. it mirrors the way we learn
things in school
2. its how they learned

IGNORE them

With those languages, youll

spend MONTHS learning the
basics so that you can do this:

(make a yellow square)

With Rails, fast and simple

is the name of the game

The ability to get quick and

positive feedback on your
projects is crucial

A final note: Scaling Rails

Does Rails scale?

You scale a site, not a framework

Does Rails scale?

Can a site built with Rails scale?

Yes

Yes

Some of the most heavily trafficked

sites in the world use Rails

Basecamp

Twitter

Shopify

Yellow Pages

Hulu

LivingSocial

Soundcloud

Zendesk

GitHub

Groupon

Part 3:
How I Taught Myself to
Code in One Month

I find traditional learning

extremely tedious

So do you.

(Otherwise youd have learned how to code by now.)

So I developed my own method

I call brute-force learning

In college I used to download

podcasts of classes I was taking

Then Id listen to the podcasts

on the subway or walking
around the city.

Doing this ended up eliminating

hundreds of hours of studying
(also teachers loved my unique perspectives)

Why does this

work?

Have you ever been confused by something

when it's explained one way but when its
explained a different way it just clicks?

If you were in a room full of smart people,

would you ask the same person to explain
something to you over and over again, or
would you ask lots of people?

The result is that learning is

less tedious

More importantly, the stress of

feeling like you have to

learn something the first time

disappears

Its OKAY to not understand

something the first time

Its OKAY to not understand

something the first time
Isnt that sort of the point?

The first time you learn something,

your mind creates a mental map. A
fuzzy picture of all the pieces and
how they fit together.

When you go back, you relearn

the specifics and it all starts to
make more sense

Just speed through as many

introductory tutorials as possible

Heres what I recommend:

Ruby on Rails Tutorial

by Michael Hartl

When you finish, youll be able to

build your own basic web app

But there will be specific

features you dont know how
to implement

Railscasts by Ryan Bates

At some point along the way, you

may feel a temptation to STOP and
learn Ruby (or HTML or CSS)

At some point along the way, you

may feel a temptation to STOP and
learn Ruby (or HTML or CSS)
Dont.

Ruby is huge

Ruby

Rails

Ruby is huge
And you only need to
know a tiny bit of it

Ruby

Rails

Besides, youll learn all the

Ruby, HTML and CSS you need
to know along the way

After youve finished, check out

these fun resources that cover
basic Ruby:

RubyMonk
Ruby Warrior
RubyKoans
Learn Ruby the Hard Way

Troubleshooting

75% of coding is Googling*

75% of coding is Googling*

*totally made up statistic

Stack Overflow

A lot of times you know what

feature you want to build, but you
dont know what its called

For example: Cron jobs let you

schedule tasks in your app

Ask someone

Rails is very popular at

the moment and has a

LARGE
community for support

The best way to learn is to go to a

Rails meetup and ask someone who
knows more than you

in NYC

NYC.rb
NYC on Rails
New York Ruby Meetup
Ruby Nuby

Go attend some

hackathons
and find teams to work with

To hear about hackathons, sign up

for the following mailing lists:

General Assembly
This Week in NYC Innovation
StartupDigest
Startup Weekend

The list of resources I

cant attest to:

Rails for Zombies

Peepcode
Railscasts
Agile Web
Development with
Rails

Ruby on Rails Guides

Hackety-hack
Teamtreehouse
Code School

Part 4: Coding in a nutshell

Installing Rails sucks

Read Section 1.2 of Ruby on Rails
Tutorial

Or watch this Railcast video

Installing Rails sucks

Read Section 1.2 of Ruby on Rails
Tutorial

Or watch this Railcast video

Installing Rails is now

super easy

This is your rails command center

TextMate

Terminal

Google Chrome

Rails uses a Model View Controller

(MVC) architecture
Controller

View

Model

Database

Rails uses a Model View Controller

(MVC) architecture
Web Pages

View

Rules

Database

Controller

Model

What does it mean?

What does it mean?

What does it mean?

Code is just words and <>%=/@:

Github is where you save versions of your

project files

Heroku lets you deploy your app so that its

live in seconds

The story of

How to Teach
Yourself to Code
Now on

Thank you.

Mattan Griffel
mattan@growhack.com
mattangriffel.com