

Coding - shainvs

Hello,<p>I'm a 12 and I just made my 1st HTML website dedicated to kids who need help to study for their tests and quizes. At my site, they can look at detailed notes and paragraphs regarding a certain chapter. I wanted to ask you guys, what can I do to learn the most and best that I can? I just learned CSS3 and am learning HTML5. I also want to do iPhone and iPod app development. What techniques should use to learn the most. Spring break is coming soon and I am going to my uncle's company: flutter(he is one of the founders) as an intern and I am hoping to learn a lot of coding there. Please give me you guys' feedback and I would really appreciate it. Thanks!!!!!
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adrianpike
Practice, practice, practice. Come up with ideas - build them. Improve upon
them. Build more projects. Build new things with different technologies, or in
a different way.

Look back on your old code, and marvel at how _wrong_ it was. Rewrite it
better.

Read through open source code. I learned things from reading the Linux kernel
source that made me absolutely destroy my C classes. I've learned dirty hacks
from Rails' source that I use all the time.

But seriously. Hack lots of code and write lots of experiments.

~~~
shainvs
Thank yo so much for taking the time to post these tips. I will be sure to
follow them. I won't be afraid to do experiments and hack. A lot. Thanks again
very much!!!! I do look back at my old code and constantly improve it (to find
out how crappy it was) and enhance it. I will also look or open sources. But
please, could you recommend some specific open sources I could really use to
learn? Thanks so much!!!

------
computerslol
Remember there is no one single right way to do anything. Don't accept
everything you read as gospel, read it as suggestion and find your own way.
There are many sorts of programmers out there, philosophically as well as
functionally. Try out a lot of styles. Try fixing a lot of different problems
to find your own style, then use it to do things nobody has ever done.

There is a LOT more to programming than code, just as there is a lot more to
painting than paint, a lot more to music than notes, and a lot more to writing
than words. The better you get, the better you will learn to play computer.
Someday, if you keep at it, you will be good enough to try teaching the
computer how to play human :D.

HTML is a great way to interface with humans. Once you feel comfortable with
it you should move into server-side programming next and see where it takes
you :D.

The projects you should be most proud of are the ones where you do something
nobody has ever done before; but to get to those you have to learn what others
have done, and learn it with respect.

At the end of the day, it's you and your computer having fun together :). Your
computer can do a lot of valuable work, but only with your help!

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firefoxman1
That's really awesome that you already built something with your knowledge. I
learned HTML/CSS when I was 13/14 but didn't really do anything useful with it
for several years.

One really important thing I've learned since then is _don't read HN too
much._

You'll get too caught up in "best practices" or the hottest new libraries that
you won't ever finish a product. It's a habit I'm working on, but it can be
summarized as doing "Enough for Now"

    
    
       1. Assume there will always be tools that are better than the ones you have now.
    
       2. Assume that events in the world will continue to happen or not happen
          regardless of whether you learn about them immediately.
    
       3. Assume that you understand and control an embarrassingly minute percentage of
          the universe.
    
       4. Assume that none of this matters if you’re determined to make something you
          care about today.
    
        - Merlin Mann, sayer of smart things

~~~
shainvs
Thanks for these great tips!!!!!

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dpritchett
There's no speed limit: <http://sivers.org/kimo>

~~~
shainvs
Thanks. Thats a great article: very inspiring.

------
ryanteo
That's really awesome that you've started. Would you want to do mobile
applications next or are you sticking to web applications for now?

This might be an outdated guide, but it gives you an idea of how to build a
"native" looking application using CSS, HTML and JavaScript -
[http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-native-iphone-ipad-
app...](http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-native-iphone-ipad-apps-in-
javascript/).

You might want to try embedding some videos from Khan Academy, Youtube or the
online universities. That will make your website more interesting.

Great start!

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dlf
This is really cool! Congrats on starting!

There are some really good resources now. Perhaps find out what technologies
they'll have you use at your uncle's company. If you'll be using Ruby, it
might be good to start with Code School
(<http://tryruby.org/levels/1/challenges/0>). CodeAcademy.com is doing their
instruction in Javascript. For Python, I've been using Udacity.com and Learn
Python the Hard Way.

Good luck!

~~~
shainvs
Thanks!! I will do that. I already finished most of the codecademy.com
tutorials and my uncle's company will be using C++ and Java the most although
they also might use a couple other languages. Thanks for your help!!!!

~~~
dlf
Ah, okay. Sounds like you could probably teach me a thing or two then!

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crop
i think more important then learning a specific language is getting a
understanding of the algorithmic stuff. try theese two books for example:
[http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Thomas-H-
Corme...](http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Thomas-H-
Cormen/dp/0262033844/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333909569&sr=8-1)
[http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Geometry-Applications-
Ma...](http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Geometry-Applications-Mark-
Berg/dp/3642096816/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333909582&sr=8-1)

i wish i had these books 10 years earlier..

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ravin455
For iPhone and iPod development, stackoverflow is a very good place to go for
asking questions, you can also buy a couple of books about iPhone and iPod
development, but then again these resources will teach you the steps but you
will need to really focus and keep on building and correcting your apps if you
want to get further. A very quick way to get you up and running with iPhone
and iPod development (Objective C) is
<http://cocoadevcentral.com/d/learn_objectivec/>.

