That's funny, I'm a 35 year old techie looking to partner with a health care professional on a startup.. If you want to bounce ideas back and forth, contact me

That's funny, I'm a 35 year old techie looking to partner with a health care professional on a startup.. If you want to bounce ideas back and forth, contact me at the email in my profile -- I'd definitely be interested in a chat with you. Also, about programming -- I do think it's a worthy thing for you to learn. If you have some spare time, you can start working your way through the free lessons here: http://learncodethehardway.org/ http://learncodethehardway.org/ I personally think that Ruby is a great language to start with, but Python is good too. As for your expectation of it taking 5 years to reach a skill-level required to be competent in these technologies, well, I don't think it will take you that much time. However, the fact that you are even thinking this way puts you far ahead of most people who are trying to learn to program fast. I'm impressed by your attitude of taking a long-term view of things. As a programmer, I talk to a lot of people who have the mindset of "I have this great idea, I just need to find a techie to build it in a few days," and I can tell from your question that that's not you, which I find very refreshing. Anyway good luck!