7 ms·

Quit Job, Learning to Code

• watmough 16y ago
  You might want to post a short summary here, as it's an interesting story. What type of job did you give up? I'm definitely interested in your story and following your blog.
  • emilepetrone 16y ago
    I'll make it more in depth tonight & get a solid post out tomorrow. Thanks for the comment!
• pbjorklund 16y ago
  Interesting "project". I think you should fill out the "why" and perhaps "how" pages with more information. It was hard for me to really understand what you are doing and why you decided to do this radical thing.
  • emilepetrone 16y ago
    Will do- great feedback
    • DTrejo 16y ago
      tip, hang out on #startups via irc.freenode.net when you're bored / want to say hello to fellow hackers. I'm in the bay too btw, so if you're at the next eastbay HN meetup I'll see you there.
      • emilepetrone 16y ago
        awesome will do...yeah i'll be there!
• albertsun 16y ago
  I don't mean to imply anything about the poster of this article in particular, but I seem to recall a saying something like... When your uncle the mechanic starts giving stock tips, you know a bubble is brewing. I think we're already in the middle of a web/mobile/social app bubble.
  • rjett 16y ago
    Meh you could probably make a decent case for why we are in the middle of a web/mobile/social app bubble, but I think the Gold Rush mentality has always been prevalent with the internet from the very beginning. Because of the very low overhead required to begin construction of a website/webapp/mobile app/etc and because at first glance, the whole world is your market, noobs think they should be able to easily stake a claim in this world. Until one dives into this world though, one doesn't realize the complexity of the code needed to get simple tasks to function properly and the footwork needed to get people interested in what you're doing. The misconception of "internet money" is exactly what Southpark made fun of a few years back (Season 12 e04). That being said, I'm rooting for Proud Noob. Do I think he'll succeed? No, if succeeding means supporting himself on the creation of this mobile app. Do I think he'll learn a lot in the process if he sticks to his goals? Absolutely.
    • emilepetrone 16y ago
      Thanks for the support!
  • nlh 16y ago
    So this is an interesting point that's worth exploring. I hear what you're saying (everyone and his brother is trying to make a buck making apps these days) but..... I do kinda think that making apps is actually creating something vs. day trading (profiting on volatility/others' mania) vs. mortgage brokering (profiting on volatility/others' mania) vs. real estate flipping (profiting on volatility/others' mania). So while there may be a "development bubble", I think it can only really be a good thing. More creativity. Now, when it stops becoming profitable to do so (i.e. app prices / advertising revenue reverts to the mean) then you'll see the opportunistic types vanish. But I think deciding to build/create applications in and of itself shouldn't be seen as a bad thing...
• petercooper 16y ago
  Nice post but.. please, please, please make your links stand out some way. There are lots of useful links in there but they're exactly the same color and style as the body text!
  • emilepetrone 16y ago
    Hear you loud and clear- great feedback
    • Scriptor 16y ago
      Also, I'm not really a fan of reading text in monospaced fonts. Others may disagree, but reading code and reading regular text are very different things.
      • emilepetrone 16y ago
        keep the comments coming...coffee is brewing and changes are coming
        • petercooper 16y ago
          FWIW, I actually like(d) the monospace font but.. I spent most of the 80s and 90s reading long texts that way. It's somehow nostalgic. I admit it's probably a niche fetish though ;-)
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• seltzered 16y ago
  from his info page: "SF 7/19 - 8/3 Charlotte, NC - 8/3 - 8/7 Knoxville, TN - 8/8 - 8/9 Longboat Key, FL - 8/10 - ????" On your about page, you mention that you're possibly touring? Just curious, have you factored in how much stress you might have going to another town every week? Will you have some friends/coding buddies to talk to during your trip? I'm really not trying to be condescending, it's just that I recently tried spending a week vacation working on a personal project in a remote place, and I ended up spending more time finding the right coffee shop to work in, understanding the transit system, etc. than I did actually working. In any case, definately wish you the best of luck.
  • emilepetrone 16y ago
    I'll add more information. Going to stay with family & have a wedding to go to. But after that its going to family house and getting away from SF distractions. Thanks for the well wishes!
    • ahemphill 16y ago
      I'm curious too — I'm moving to SF on Friday and would love to find some like-minded people with whom I can live.
• binaryfinery 16y ago
  "Learn to Code, Quit Job" might be wiser?
  • emilepetrone 16y ago
    Tried that while I was still at Redbeacon. It's very difficult because you are in this start/stop mentality from the daily grind. Also it kept me tied down. If you don't take the leap, you don't have the full weight of the situation on top of you. Thoughts?
    • watmough 16y ago
      I downloaded the iPhone SDK in March 2008, whilst on vacation in DC. After working with it for a few months, I quit my job, but in that case, I'd written a few non-trivial programs and knew writing Objective-C and Cocoa code was what I wanted to do. Sure as hell beat writing business software and teaching C# to business grads, though anything is fun if you're determined to enjoy it. Total pay cut, maybe $160k and rising. Yeah, still the right decision, though money has been tight. The key point is that I had a solid grasp of what I needed to do technically to survive after quitting, and I was not jumping into the unknown, just the not yet done.
      • emilepetrone 16y ago
        Good points..will answer in next post
• bosch 16y ago
  Good luck. Maybe give some info on why you decided to learn certain technologies over other ones. Would be interesting to see what a n00b with no perceived bias chooses.
  • emilepetrone 16y ago
    K Will do
• ora600 16y ago
  I learned today that I may be losing my H1B soon. I can stay in the US as I'm married to another H1B holder, but I will not be able to work. Since I dislike being idle, my first thought is to pack up and move back to my home country to look for a job. But this article represents an interesting path that I may follow myself. Thanks for inspiring me to view lack of work permit as an opportunity and not a major life crisis.
  • emilepetrone 16y ago
    Booya! Thats great- grab the bull by the horns! Let me know if I can help further just tweet me @emilepetrone
• cloudkj 16y ago
  I'm in pretty much the same situation as you, fast-forwarded a few weeks. However, I decided to take the plunge into learning iPhone development. Once you start playing with it, you'll realize why the iPhone is such a compelling platform and such a hit in the mobile apps space. Apple made it really hard for anyone to build a crappy experience. Tangentially, I'm not really enjoying the learning experience since going through the book (the grapefruit book) is pretty much the same as doing a bunch of tutorials. I still don't feel like I understand the overall architecture of an iPhone app and how the various pieces connect. Anyone have good book recommendations?
  • emilepetrone 16y ago
    So you dove right into Objective C?
    • cloudkj 16y ago
      Simultaneously reading the iPhone dev book and going through the Objective-C manual from Apple. Objective-C is pretty easy to understand as long as you understand object-oriented programming and have a solid grasp on C. It's just learning it AND the iPhone platform at the same time that is a little harder.
• Ygor 16y ago
  This is an interesting schedule. I like how you added the social component. This days you can't do anything without the social component. :) "5:30 AM - Wakeup 5:30 AM - 7:30AM - Read blogs, articles, mail, write blog post 7:30 AM - 12 PM - Code without distractions (turn on SelfControl) 12 PM - 1:30 PM - Run, workout, make some quick food 1:30 PM - 6PM - Ignore desire for a nap, Code & Coffee 6PM - Get out of the house and meet people!" Do you really plan to uphold it every day? Or is it more like a flexible guide? This times look pretty tight. Did you plan it concerning your personal preferences (early wakeup, how much sleep?), or more on the general work day "normal people" expected schedule. And do you really need to write a blog post every day? Don't you think all this will be a distraction?
  • emilepetrone 16y ago
    Logic behind a schedule- I used to row at UNC, and we had practice twice a day. Having the same schedule over and over again creates a certain amount of comfort within the repetition. It's 6am now- been responding to comments & emails since 5:30, so yep holding to it! The blog post a day will serve as a marker for the previous days accomplishments, and thoughts for the process ahead.
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• christonog 16y ago
  Hey Emile, did you do the E-ship program at UNC by chance? I think I remember you.. Anyway, I'm following the same path (teaching myself to program to work on my own projects). It's been fun (some days I feel like I can do anything with a computer) and challenging (other days I want to rip my hair out and hide in despair). I've been doing it for about a year and a half now. I think the biggest challenge with non-programmers learning how to program is that it takes an exceptionally long time to get even the most basic functionality running. So work on the most basic thing, and even if it looks ugly in the beginning, just keep iterating on it. I started with Ruby and Rails, but you can't go wrong with Python and Django in the beginning. If you want to see what lots of time and a little bit of programming on your own can give you, check out my little app www.getsetapp.com. Good luck man, and let me know the next time you're in NC.