

Ask HN: Biz folks learning how to hack? - kseven

It’s funny when I think about the topic of my question now.<p>Traditionally, engineers, hackers and techies would seek to pick up
managerial skills to advance their carrier, well at least in stupid
boring-suited-corporate-fortune-1000.<p>Don’t get me wrong, I believe leadership skills are indispensible for
founders. However, the rapid development of technology and internet is 
pushing the other way around – Biz folks learning to hack.<p>It’s been pushing me since awhile now, and before jumping off the
cliff, I really would appreciate your help in where and how to start
climbing up with a bag of programming/hacking skills.<p>A bit about myself, I am from Algeria. I am not entirely a “suit”
person, but my focus has been on leadership, management and language- 
teaching throughout the past 7 years. I co-founded a social start-up 
of an international student organization.<p>Funny enough, I first joined university majoring CS but then later
switched to statistics – don’t ask me why, I have no idea how I made
that decision, I guess it was because I started to be attracted to 
business and leadership. Any way my 1 year CS at university allowed 
me to gain some knowledge in Pascal algorithms and math.<p>I am not seeking to learn hacking simply because I have to but rather
I want to – It is beautiful to have that ability to help build the pr-
oduct you have in mind (YC folks make a strong point here).<p>I do have 2 business ideas, and I am thinking of approaching 2 of
my techie friends to possibly apply for the upcoming YC summer batch
but I am more heading towards bringing the idea to life first then 
apply next times to YC, allowing myself to gain some hacking skills.<p>So Hackers, how should I start this journey off?<p>Merci d’avance<p>P.S: programming skills I am looking for tend to be around web
development.
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richardjordan
I think the "be your own CTO" advice for non-techies starting out with just an
idea is always solid. I had a similar programming background to you and for
over a decade I was working on the business side of things, successfully
launching product from sales, marketing and business development roles.

However after having technical co-founder issues twice I recognized I needed
to learn how to, at least in the early days of testing an idea, be my own
technical co-founder. How to hack the initial stages of an MVP together in
order to test things out.

I learned Ruby on Rails back in 2010 and haven't looked back since. It's easy
to pick up and there is so much good information out there on how to learn you
can quite quickly, if you're smart and committed to doing so, build up from
being an absolute beginner to a reasonable intermediate-level programmer able
to put out a functioning minimal viable product.

It won't be perfect, and you'll want to bring in the star programmers later.
But it's not something you'll ever regret.

A simple analogy which you may appreciate as an Algerian. As an English
speaker if you go to Paris and only speak in English you won't find a
Frenchman who understands a word you say. If you attempt your best French,
however poor, you'll find people talking back to you in English and willing to
help. Same with engineering talent. Every engineer is approached all the time
by non-technical people with "an idea" who "just" need it implementing by a
techie. Unsurprisingly these approaches don't get taken up often. However if
you have a product that is viable and working and now needs making better,
more scalable, more secure, you have something that you can engage other
engineers in.

~~~
kseven
Thanks a lot, I very much like the analogy :) You covered it all.

To add more, even if you have star techie co-founders, it doesn't make much
sense to be that business person with no understanding of programming, not
even the basics. And even if the business requires enterprise sales.

Practically, it would affect brainstorming at early start up stages for
example.

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merinid
If you re going to start today, just learn javascript and nodejs. Like thar
you will only need to be manipulating 1 language in addition to html and css
to pump out webapps. Look into node's express framework. It's great for
bootstrapping apps.

~~~
kseven
Thanks a lot, I guess I need to start first with HTML and css

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adelevie
There are many good paths to take, and I'd avoid discussions about the "right"
language to start with. Pick any language and run with it. If, down the road,
you need to use a different set of technologies, then that time will come. But
right now, it's time to learn. If you decide to learn Ruby, feel free to email
me if you need any help getting started. It's my HN username at gmail. Good
luck!

~~~
kseven
I tried to email you. I got a delivery failure. HN username@gmail.com right?

~~~
adelevie
adelevie at gmail

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goneyukon
I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned already, but as a business-side
person with an interest in "hacking", I find Codecademy to be extremely
valuable. You can learn all kinds of programming languages there.

