4 ms·

Recommended hacker skills courses for non-tech founders

4 points by Mistone 19y ago

tuukkah 19y ago
Could you explain a bit more? If there are no hackers in your startup, you need to learn it all, not just some skills. If there are hackers in your startup, they can do it without you. If you want to start your long journey to become a hacker and less annoying to your co-founders ;-) there's at least http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html
- Mistone 19y ago
  right, I'm mostly looking to gain mid level of proficiency in some of the front end areas to be a more well rounded leader. While there is a lot of stuff I do not really want to learn, having the skills to create live mockups and make tweaks on my own will save a ton of time as well as give me more control of the final look/feel/function of the product.
  - tuukkah 19y ago
    http://www.uie.com/articles/prototyping_tips/ http://www.uie.com/articles/prototyping_tips/ Perhaps your team can introduce you to the basic architecture and syntax of the web framework they've chosen, as well as the everyday version control and deployment steps.
Zak 19y ago
I assume you're wondering what you need to know in order to be able to communicate with and judge the skill level of hackers. The former isn't too hard. Most hackers are happy to start by explaining the basics if you have no clue what they're talking about. Exactly what details you need to understand depends on what you're working on. You should understand the overall concepts behind the design of your product. For a non-hacker to judge the skill of a hacker is nearly impossible - it's hard enough for hackers to do it. PG discusses it at length: http://paulgraham.com/gh.html http://paulgraham.com/gh.html
weel 19y ago
Computer Science is an unusually accessible field of engineering for self-learners. Purveyors of fine computer systems and programming languages market them by writing oodles of documentation, often free. There is an amazing amount to be learned just from reading the GNU manuals. All the machinery you need in order to play around with most of the latest new technology is available at Fry's. But I should probably warn you against the idea that you can become a good programmer simply by learning to use some of the tools. That's like becoming a chess player by studying the rules of the game, and the mechanics of chess clocks. If you just want to make sure you can understand your more technical business partner when s/he talks shop, or even do some simple programming, surely, you can get a long way simply by knowing the syntax of a programming language or two and some basic UNIX. I've seen some self-taught programmers do amazing things. But for most jobs that are actually technically innovative, you're going to have to sit down and learn some stuff about algorithms, data structures, concurrency, and so on. (This is what I shall snobistically call "real CS".) Fortunately, even "real CS" can, with lots of motivation, be learned outside of formal academia. I would recommend you start with Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (the book and three different series of free video lectures are on the net for free). In fact, even if your goal is just to understand the techies, SICP is probably still about as good as it gets, and the old Abelson and Sussman video lectures are quite amusing. Other great resources are ArsDigita University and OpenCourseWare.
- davidw 19y ago
  "Computer Science is an unusually accessible field of engineering for self-learners" Isn't it ever! If you all will pardon me for going on a bit more about my site squeezed books, one of the things that is very frustrating about trying to learn something about business, economics, and marketing is that you realize there is this gaping hole in on-line resources compared to what I know and love - computers, where you can do everything on your own.
  - corentin 19y ago
    I'm learning economics, marketing and business as well and there are good resources online (although, that's true, I'm reading a few books as well, but it's the same for computer stuff in fact). Among the resources I know and use are: Paul Graham's essays, like many people here (I prefer reading them on paper anyway, but all of them are available on his website); Joel Spolsky's blog (joelonsoftware.com) used to have very good articles (lately it's not as good as it used to be); he had the best of them published, too. Eric Sink's blog (software.ericsink.com); great articles on marketing and business for geeks. There are good articles about the basics of business in the Trizoko online business journal: http://www.trizle.com/trizoko http://www.trizle.com/trizoko On changethis.com you'll find a lot of great PDFs on business subjects (very good resource; there is good stuff by Seth Godin here) For economics, I'm reading the work of Frédéric Bastiat, available online here: bastiat.org.
litepost 19y ago
There's always Academy X in San Francisco, and related courses/institutions around the world (especially the US): http://www.academyx.com/training/san_francisco/programs/web-developer/ http://www.academyx.com/training/san_francisco/programs/web-developer/ LAMP in 3 months for $2000. (Sounds about right to me?) @Zak & @pg: "For a non-hacker to judge the skill of a hacker is nearly impossible - it's hard enough for hackers to do it. PG discusses it at length: http://paulgraham.com/gh.html http://paulgraham.com/gh.html" This isn't necessarily/always true. A person can always be judged by their prior work, as in any other field. The actual quality of the "hacking" may be difficult to discern, but the overall quality of the product/s should typically be visible rather easily/immediately. If someone's built a product that works and/or sells reasonably, that's usually a good sign!!
Mistone 19y ago
Has anyone taken a course from O'Rielly Univ: http://oreillyschool.com/?CMP=ILC-KW1330595132&ATT=learningjune http://oreillyschool.com/?CMP=ILC-KW1330595132&ATT=learningjune

4 points by Mistone 19y ago

Could you explain a bit more? If there are no hackers in your startup, you need to learn it all, not just some skills. If there are hackers in your startup, they can do it without you. If you want to start your long journey to become a hacker and less annoying to your co-founders ;-) there's at least http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

Mistone 19y ago
right, I'm mostly looking to gain mid level of proficiency in some of the front end areas to be a more well rounded leader. While there is a lot of stuff I do not really want to learn, having the skills to create live mockups and make tweaks on my own will save a ton of time as well as give me more control of the final look/feel/function of the product.
- tuukkah 19y ago
  http://www.uie.com/articles/prototyping_tips/ http://www.uie.com/articles/prototyping_tips/ Perhaps your team can introduce you to the basic architecture and syntax of the web framework they've chosen, as well as the everyday version control and deployment steps.

Zak 19y ago

I assume you're wondering what you need to know in order to be able to communicate with and judge the skill level of hackers. The former isn't too hard. Most hackers are happy to start by explaining the basics if you have no clue what they're talking about. Exactly what details you need to understand depends on what you're working on. You should understand the overall concepts behind the design of your product. For a non-hacker to judge the skill of a hacker is nearly impossible - it's hard enough for hackers to do it. PG discusses it at length: http://paulgraham.com/gh.html http://paulgraham.com/gh.html

weel 19y ago

Computer Science is an unusually accessible field of engineering for self-learners. Purveyors of fine computer systems and programming languages market them by writing oodles of documentation, often free. There is an amazing amount to be learned just from reading the GNU manuals. All the machinery you need in order to play around with most of the latest new technology is available at Fry's. But I should probably warn you against the idea that you can become a good programmer simply by learning to use some of the tools. That's like becoming a chess player by studying the rules of the game, and the mechanics of chess clocks. If you just want to make sure you can understand your more technical business partner when s/he talks shop, or even do some simple programming, surely, you can get a long way simply by knowing the syntax of a programming language or two and some basic UNIX. I've seen some self-taught programmers do amazing things. But for most jobs that are actually technically innovative, you're going to have to sit down and learn some stuff about algorithms, data structures, concurrency, and so on. (This is what I shall snobistically call "real CS".) Fortunately, even "real CS" can, with lots of motivation, be learned outside of formal academia. I would recommend you start with Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (the book and three different series of free video lectures are on the net for free). In fact, even if your goal is just to understand the techies, SICP is probably still about as good as it gets, and the old Abelson and Sussman video lectures are quite amusing. Other great resources are ArsDigita University and OpenCourseWare.

davidw 19y ago
"Computer Science is an unusually accessible field of engineering for self-learners" Isn't it ever! If you all will pardon me for going on a bit more about my site squeezed books, one of the things that is very frustrating about trying to learn something about business, economics, and marketing is that you realize there is this gaping hole in on-line resources compared to what I know and love - computers, where you can do everything on your own.
- corentin 19y ago
  I'm learning economics, marketing and business as well and there are good resources online (although, that's true, I'm reading a few books as well, but it's the same for computer stuff in fact). Among the resources I know and use are: Paul Graham's essays, like many people here (I prefer reading them on paper anyway, but all of them are available on his website); Joel Spolsky's blog (joelonsoftware.com) used to have very good articles (lately it's not as good as it used to be); he had the best of them published, too. Eric Sink's blog (software.ericsink.com); great articles on marketing and business for geeks. There are good articles about the basics of business in the Trizoko online business journal: http://www.trizle.com/trizoko http://www.trizle.com/trizoko On changethis.com you'll find a lot of great PDFs on business subjects (very good resource; there is good stuff by Seth Godin here) For economics, I'm reading the work of Frédéric Bastiat, available online here: bastiat.org.

litepost 19y ago

There's always Academy X in San Francisco, and related courses/institutions around the world (especially the US): http://www.academyx.com/training/san_francisco/programs/web-developer/ http://www.academyx.com/training/san_francisco/programs/web-developer/ LAMP in 3 months for $2000. (Sounds about right to me?) @Zak & @pg: "For a non-hacker to judge the skill of a hacker is nearly impossible - it's hard enough for hackers to do it. PG discusses it at length: http://paulgraham.com/gh.html http://paulgraham.com/gh.html" This isn't necessarily/always true. A person can always be judged by their prior work, as in any other field. The actual quality of the "hacking" may be difficult to discern, but the overall quality of the product/s should typically be visible rather easily/immediately. If someone's built a product that works and/or sells reasonably, that's usually a good sign!!

Mistone 19y ago

Has anyone taken a course from O'Rielly Univ: http://oreillyschool.com/?CMP=ILC-KW1330595132&ATT=learningjune http://oreillyschool.com/?CMP=ILC-KW1330595132&ATT=learningjune