3 ms·

This type of question is asked a lot, so I want to begin with the disclaimer that everyone is different and the real best project to begin with is something tha

This type of question is asked a lot, so I want to begin with the disclaimer that everyone is different and the real best project to begin with is something that you have a personal interest in, or that helps you professionally. For example, I taught myself jQuery by creating http://sleepyti.me http://sleepyti.me -- which is now profitable enough to pay my rent. If you don't have an immediate need for software -- whether it be a webapp, or (more likely with Python) a script that organizes files on a *nix system, you have two viable choices: open source contributions or 'challenges'. Open source contribution is by far the best way to propel yourself into software development, but the problem is that it can be very advanced for the neophyte programmer. If you can find a project to take you under their wing, that's awesome; more likely, you can set this as an eventual goal of your programming experience. A second choice that I personally have found intriguing is the 'challenge' approach. Completing challenges such as Project Euler or various Code Katas that you can find (don't worry if they're in another language specifically, you can simply use your language of choice to complete them) shows progress and presents you with real, challenging scenarios to deal with. Code Katas tend to let you learn the language most practically, where as Project Euler problems are generally more math and algorithm-development based. Either way, these challenges are fun and generally rewarding. I wish you luck on your question to master software development; there are few feelings in the world as satisfying as creating a useful, clean piece of software.

naithemilkman 16y ago
The app makes money through adwords and its enough to pay for your rent?
- david_shaw 16y ago
  It does, but only because there is a significant amount of traffic -- about 30k hits per day. I answered the other question in a more in-depth fashion since he asked me to expand on the site/idea in general, so you can find more info there. Just didn't want you to think I was ignoring the question!
beambot 16y ago
I'm curious about your experience creating sleepyti.me. Care to write more about the subject?
- david_shaw 16y ago
  Sure. I created http://sleepyti.me http://sleepyti.me for a couple of reasons: first and foremost, I am not a morning person. I read with envy all of the HN posts about morning pages, getting up early with a cup of joe to be productive, etc. I am usually a groggy mess in the morning. When I learned that you could time sleep cycles to reduce sleep intertia by waking up in between cycles, I immediately saw how it could help my life. Originally, I had written a shell script to help me personally (refre.sh to wake up refreshed), but it was difficult to distribute and my friends on a non-unix based OS couldn't use it at all. I had recently been wanting to try my hand at developing web applications, and had decided to try jQuery. I am a security engineer and most of the code I write is for backend systems; basically, I'm not a design guy. I learned jQuery and created sleepyti.me initially as a 'weekend project' (which, way back when, HN and reddit.com/r/web_design gave me feedback on) which I then expanded on until it was something I liked. I'm now in the final stages of developing an iPhone app (because of incessant demand via email) and soon Android, Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry versions. The money comes in because of the traffic I've gotten. Someone (not me) submitted sleepyti.me to StumbleUpon very early in the site's lifecycle, and it has been quite popular there. I put a Facebook Like button on the page to try to drive the site socially/virally/"organically". This brought me between 10-15k hits a day -- a lot for a weekend project. About two months after launch, someone (not me) submitted to Reddit's Today I Learned subreddit (regarding sleep inertia), which drove 250k+ hits in one day. After this event, my daily hits started averaging around 30k hits per day, which is where they are stable now. Although obviously only a tiny amount of viewers click my banner ad, with an overall traffic amount this large there are bound to be people interested in whatever Adsense has spewing up. Additionally, I only show my banner ad after the calculation has occurred, so viewers don't have to suffer through ads. I've gotten emails from Google (automated of course) advising me to increase the banner count on the site, but I don't want to further bother viewers. If they're interested, they click; if not, no pressure. My eventual goal would be to sell dedicated ad slots to an interested party (for example, a mattress chain that wants my visitors, or an alarm clock manufacturer, etc) or to sell the site at large to one of these entities. I'm not actively marketing it, however, and don't really even know how I'd go about it. Not sure that you were looking for quite so in-depth of a reply, but I wanted to explain myself as I also saw another posting asking about the profit. Don't worry, I'm not a link spammer :) Edit: As I seem unable to reply to the reply to this post, I will answer here. The 30k/day is from varied sources, as reddit traffic is generally short lived. I imagine that some of my 'dedicated audience' is from reddit, but a lot of it is users that found it shared on Facebook or located it via StumbleUpon.
lovskogen 16y ago
Off topic design note: you should not force people having to pick Minutes before allowing calculation.

naithemilkman 16y ago

The app makes money through adwords and its enough to pay for your rent?

david_shaw 16y ago
It does, but only because there is a significant amount of traffic -- about 30k hits per day. I answered the other question in a more in-depth fashion since he asked me to expand on the site/idea in general, so you can find more info there. Just didn't want you to think I was ignoring the question!

beambot 16y ago

I'm curious about your experience creating sleepyti.me. Care to write more about the subject?

david_shaw 16y ago
Sure. I created http://sleepyti.me http://sleepyti.me for a couple of reasons: first and foremost, I am not a morning person. I read with envy all of the HN posts about morning pages, getting up early with a cup of joe to be productive, etc. I am usually a groggy mess in the morning. When I learned that you could time sleep cycles to reduce sleep intertia by waking up in between cycles, I immediately saw how it could help my life. Originally, I had written a shell script to help me personally (refre.sh to wake up refreshed), but it was difficult to distribute and my friends on a non-unix based OS couldn't use it at all. I had recently been wanting to try my hand at developing web applications, and had decided to try jQuery. I am a security engineer and most of the code I write is for backend systems; basically, I'm not a design guy. I learned jQuery and created sleepyti.me initially as a 'weekend project' (which, way back when, HN and reddit.com/r/web_design gave me feedback on) which I then expanded on until it was something I liked. I'm now in the final stages of developing an iPhone app (because of incessant demand via email) and soon Android, Windows Phone 7 and Blackberry versions. The money comes in because of the traffic I've gotten. Someone (not me) submitted sleepyti.me to StumbleUpon very early in the site's lifecycle, and it has been quite popular there. I put a Facebook Like button on the page to try to drive the site socially/virally/"organically". This brought me between 10-15k hits a day -- a lot for a weekend project. About two months after launch, someone (not me) submitted to Reddit's Today I Learned subreddit (regarding sleep inertia), which drove 250k+ hits in one day. After this event, my daily hits started averaging around 30k hits per day, which is where they are stable now. Although obviously only a tiny amount of viewers click my banner ad, with an overall traffic amount this large there are bound to be people interested in whatever Adsense has spewing up. Additionally, I only show my banner ad after the calculation has occurred, so viewers don't have to suffer through ads. I've gotten emails from Google (automated of course) advising me to increase the banner count on the site, but I don't want to further bother viewers. If they're interested, they click; if not, no pressure. My eventual goal would be to sell dedicated ad slots to an interested party (for example, a mattress chain that wants my visitors, or an alarm clock manufacturer, etc) or to sell the site at large to one of these entities. I'm not actively marketing it, however, and don't really even know how I'd go about it. Not sure that you were looking for quite so in-depth of a reply, but I wanted to explain myself as I also saw another posting asking about the profit. Don't worry, I'm not a link spammer :) Edit: As I seem unable to reply to the reply to this post, I will answer here. The 30k/day is from varied sources, as reddit traffic is generally short lived. I imagine that some of my 'dedicated audience' is from reddit, but a lot of it is users that found it shared on Facebook or located it via StumbleUpon.

lovskogen 16y ago

Off topic design note: you should not force people having to pick Minutes before allowing calculation.