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I guess my point is that it is sortof self-validating. If you need somebody to tell you not to build this stuff, then you probably aren't yet at a point where
by blhack 16y ago
I guess my point is that it is sortof self-validating.
If you need somebody to tell you not to build this stuff, then you probably aren't yet at a point where building one of them wouldn't be a learning experience for you, even if that learning experience is just "stop building twitter clones".
- tptacek 16y agoYou see how your cheerleading has actually become toxic for the people you want to be helping? "If they need someone to tell them this"... then they should be penalized by being led to waste up to a year of their life? How about you lead them somewhere productive instead of into the tar pits?
- blhack 16y agoI'm sorry, but no. Absolutely not. This is not "toxic" for anybody. "Waste up to a year of their life?" When I was 16, my friends and I thought we were going to take over the world by starting a "tech company". We knew we were all nerds, and we knew we wanted to own a "tech company". We got together, thought up a cool name, made a cool website, and got some cool business cards. Was this a stupid idea? Yes. Did I learn a lot from it? Yes. Do you consider 4 years spent in business school a waste of time? Toxic? Do you consider time spent going to school for computer science, learning to program a "waste"? How many times have computer science students written "cash register" programs in java? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? Was this time all wasted? I would say no.
- tptacek 16y agoYes, business school is a waste. Yes, Java cash register programs are a waste. Yes, doomed Craigslist competitors are a waste. People too young to go to business school have cashed out of YC companies. Aspire to that, not to rationalizing very expensive learning experiences.
- blhack 16y ago>People too young to go to business school have cashed out of YC companies. Did these people crawl out of the womb with a keyboard in one hand and an apache server in the other? How do you suppose they learned how to program?
- tptacek 16y agoPresumably the same way I did. I have 1 semester of school, and I took liberal arts classes.
- shadowfox 16y agoThis has turned in to a strange discussion :|
- JoachimSchipper 16y agoNot by trying to turn a Java cash register into a business. There's nothing particularly wrong with writing a Twitter clone as an exercise (although I could think of more interesting exercises), but trying to turn it into a business - with everything that entails - is such a large distraction from coding that you'd better skip it (if your goal is to be a good programmer; I'm certainly not a sufficiently good businessman to judge whether it's effective training for that, although I would go to work for someone else and observe.)
- Egregore 16y agoI have never had a class on apache server, nor on keyboard and still I know how to use both, so the desire to learn is much more important than attending classes.
- kahawe 16y agoSo basically you are trying to say any kind of education and learning process is a waste unless you go and aim straight at multinational multibillion dollar success or what is your point?
- 16y ago