

Ask: HN Best book on programming for non technical founder? - Paulosborne

Best singular book for intro to programming and web applications.  I know one book will never 'cover it all'.  Yet best all round start to this.
======
steventruong
If you have no programming experience whatsoever and you're looking to do web
development, I recommend starting with HTML. A good book is the Head First
HTML with CSS and XHTML. HTML isn't a programming language on its own but it
is used in conjunction with pretty much everything else and is pretty much the
starting point. That book does a really good job explaining the very basics
and why you'd do something a certain way. From there, you can expand into
actual programming languages afterwards.

~~~
Paulosborne
Thanks for the tip .

------
imjonathanlee
For me, the easiest way to start wasn't using a book. It was learning hands on
to create a simple functional website right from the beginning, and
researching the effects and functions you want to be able to do. Once you get
the hang of it, it's relatively easy to understand and after a while, you'll
get a hang of how to start programming.

~~~
Paulosborne
Cool . Thanks

------
diego
A good one would be Learn Python the Hard Way. Python is a good language for
beginners, and widely used.

<http://learnpythonthehardway.org/index>

There are probably similar books/resources for Ruby.

~~~
Paulosborne
Checking out now . Thanks

------
rdin
Building web applications is just a small part of programming in general; I
too would agree on learning HTML and CSS first. Once you can master static
pages, you can start learning how to introduce dynamic components to build
rich web apps.

~~~
Paulosborne
Cool

------
eeagerdeveloper
I would suggest you read "Joel on Software". It can teach you how to better
communicate with your technical founder and programmers and to understand the
general technical challenges in undertaking a project.

~~~
Paulosborne
Great source . Also love the style of how he communicates . Thanks for the tip
.

