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Hey dude! For RoR: 1) Have you seen the free Rails for Zombies course from code school? There is a part 2 which costs money ... but might be worth it if you e
by iqster 15y ago
Hey dude!
For RoR:
1) Have you seen the free Rails for Zombies course from code school? There is a part 2 which costs money ... but might be worth it if you enjoyed part 1.
2) There are a few screencasts on peepcode that might be useful. I think there are two on Rails3/3.1 for 10 or 12 bucks. I thought they were worth it.
MVP advice:
1) I am not a successful entrepreneur so take my advice with a grain of salt. I've learned after several MVPs that just writing code and putting it up on the web does not translate to cash. PG wrote an article relevant to this recently ... http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html
So basically, my experience has been that building an MVP is part of a much grander process. Do build a quick an dirty MVP to explore your ideas and get feedback. But also do think of the bigger picture and iterate.
For learning to code:
1) I'm not a fan of these bootcamp events that are quite popular these days. That said, I have a CS degree and code for fun. After attending a few of these events, I felt these events were pretty useless. You cannot learn to code in a weekend or a week. But so what? My suggestion is to pick a language (if you will do RoR, Ruby is a perfect choice; if you want to do server side stuff, I'd recommend Python). Once you picked a language, write code! For fun! Yes ... it sounds insane given you have an MVP to work on. But do it for fun! Write a sudoku solver or whatever strikes you as a fun toy problem. After a while, writing code will be as natural as thinking.
2) Go to Hackathons on weekends/evenings. There are ton of events all the time. Usually, they are very cheap to attend. Work with other developers. I picked up RoR from a dude at a hackathon (I was using Python and being too slow). Same thing for choice of programming editors, etc.
Have you thought of combining your biotech with coding? This is a different path than web programming. It might become very fruitful over time.
- biopharma_guy 15y agoThanks for the information. 1. I have only seen part 1. I am going to watch the 2nd part soon. 2. I am afraid to watch too many tutorials at a time. It will be hard for me to assimilate all. But I will keep it in my inventory and watch it. Yes, I have read PG's article about Schlep business and it is a really eye opener for me. Regarding Bootcamp- I am waiting to see those bootcamper's feedback regarding the bootcamp.If it is highly successful then it is worth every penny and your time. Is not it? Hackthons- I have no ideas about Hackathons in bay areas. But I will look for it and start attending it. Yes I have few product ideas for biotech and pharma industry but I do not have enough cash to hire a good programmer. And also I have no clues where and how to find a good programmer. I cound not find your email on your profile. Please shoot me an email. Would like to talk to you more.
- derekja 15y agoyou're in the bay area. Check out biocurious (http://biocurious.org http://biocurious.org) It's filled with folks in the computer industry who are all infatuated with biotech. I bet you'd find people you could trade skills with!
- biopharma_guy 15y agoThanks. I have free pass for few days. I will go and explore more.