
Today a programmer was born. And you are my mother. - vnchr
Today, I join your ranks. I am starting as the lowest of the low, but no one can take that my position from me.<p>I got a B+ in C++ in 2003. I read Why's Poignant Comic Book in 2005. I've followed web startups for years, and even played a business role in 2 of them. But it wasn't until 4:58am today, after a long night with fellow coders who helped carry me over the hill, that I wrest to myself the glory it is to be a programmer.<p>Proof?<p>I wrote a crappy program to help my friend Greg figure which trains are coming next at one of his Metro stops. Behold the breathtaking majesty: http://blazing-galaxy-7821.herokuapp.com/ If you figure out how it works, the FBI will add you to their potential X-Men shortlist.<p>And I'm on Github. Yeah, that's right. The Github. I have committed something: https://github.com/israelvicars/Over-The-Hump<p>I don't know what you think it takes to become a programmer. I don't care either. Most of you have forgotten more code after last night's bender then I've learned ever. But there are OTHERS who like me stared at the beginner computer manuals from O'Reilly. Stared and read and then got stuck. And stayed stuck.<p>I've been getting stuck on my own for years. YEARS, with a capital "Y am I a failure?"<p>My stack of programming books didn't get me there. They are still on my bookshelf. My top-billing university engineering education couldn't cut it. It gave me context but then left me at the alter. No, my friends. It took you. And your counter-parts sitting in this office with me tonight.<p>The programming community lifted this stray sheep out of the vast sea of Almost.<p>Thank you for your insightful comments and occasional threats here on HN. Thank you for bragging about that grossly complex web app you built over the weekend while I napped and played frisbee. Thank you to my mostly younger but way smarter programming compadres at the Code til Dawn Meetup I started in January to meet programmers in my community. Thank you especially to my buddy "exid3" for walking me through the endless bumps in the road that stood between me launching this app tonight and another evening of plodding through a tutorial.<p>And to those who wallow still in the sea of Almost, surround yourself with members of the programmer community. Set the right goal and don't give up. It may take years for you too. But damn it feels good to be a coder.
======
justin_vanw
You don't know it yet, but you're a ruby programmer. I don't mean "you'll use
ruby possibly", I mean that is the community that you will understand and that
will understand you. Don't ask me how I can tell, reading your posting it is
obvious.

I hope you continue to have as much fun and continue to get orgasmic pleasure
at every tiny milestone.

UNSUBSCRIBE

~~~
vnchr
Thank you for that encouragement.

At my startup, our application is built in python and django. I originally
wrote the function in python, but my buddy knew ruby/rails better and he could
help me deploy it easier that way so I rewrote it in ruby.

I think ruby is fun and the community is very inviting. I'd like to keep doing
python and ruby together as I learn, ruby because it's interesting and rails
is really something. And python because it will make me a better contributor
to my team and I know it has more recognition in academia (for my later
pursuits).

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alinajaf
10+ years since my first 'Hello, world!' (in VB, bleugh) and I still feel like
an imposter doing this. You have a long, mind-expanding, incredibly
frustrating and deeply rewarding road ahead. Good luck!

~~~
nasmorn
This will never stop I think. Whenever I do a project and find out that I am
really good at something in comparison to others on the team I soon read an
article by Yehuda Katz about how he just released a few new libraries that
were merged into rails core in his spare time.

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watmough
You might want to make an actual readme for GitHub instead of posting the
default Rails one!

Plus your overthehump link is broken (at the top of the GitHub page).

Neat, congratulations, this looks really useful. There's probably a startup in
here somewhere if you could get bus and train times for a cohesive group of
country-wide city and metro areas.

~~~
vnchr
Thanks. Fixing that link sounds like a tangible next step for improving my
"mini-app". I think I'll take it farther just because, like making it work for
a couple more stops and setting up a better time input.

~~~
watmough
I really like that it's instant and super lightweight. Those are valuable
traits.

You might want to consider carefully how you change the time input. What you
have now is the minimum possible input to specify a 24 hour range. You might
want to take input like 115, 10 20, and put effort into parsing any input,
rather than fixing the input at something that involves, say entering a colon
(shifted character and harder to input on a phone), which might look more
professional, but is actually a giant step backwards!

~~~
aidanfeldman
You could go with a traditional time selector
([http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/DateHe...](http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionView/Helpers/DateHelper.html#method-
i-select_time)), but I like the single box for typing in the time. Might be
able to parse more things with a library like Chronic (best name for a gem
ever - <http://chronic.rubyforge.org/>).

Congrats buddy!

~~~
vnchr
Thanks! I'll look into that. Improving the output formatting is my easiest
next step. Then the input, so I'll check out that library. You're a pal.

~~~
watmough
For people that are just 'starting out' and also people that just want to keep
their hand in, it's really a good idea to practice writing small pieces of
intricate code like tokenizers, string processing etc., rather than just
selecting the closest library to hand.

Obviously, if you're writing code commercially, you may want either complete
control over some code (write it), or you may want it now (use a lib), so
writing all your own code may be an impossible luxury.

Here's a small example snippet I just did. I've been doing software since
1988, but often just gluing (MFC) api's together, and not doing stuff that
really benefits me as much as it might. Anyways, here's a gist that implements
a 'good enough to use' version of an iOS 4.0-only api as a category on NSData,
allowing string searching of arbitrary data:

<https://gist.github.com/1238869>

------
sathishmanohar
I kinda had a feeling, that you should have written it in Ruby On Rails before
opening the link, seems I'm right.

Good Luck for your coding and other endeavors.

~~~
vnchr
Thank you. There are practical reasons for me to learn python and django, but
I'm finding RoR to be very accessible now.

------
EvanK
I've been a programmer for about 11 years. I've been doing it professionally
for about 6. The fact that you're writing code because you want to makes you a
programmer, not whether you're doing it professionally or whether you're any
good at it (yet).

Welcome to the ranks. I always value one more person in this field that is
driven to build something of quality.

------
frou_dh
Finding passion is winning.

~~~
vnchr
Using gerunds is winning!

------
cefarix
Every worthwhile project you will do, you will learn something new. That's
true for even those of us who have over 10 years of experience. Adapt or die -
always true in the IT industry :)

~~~
vnchr
Thanks. While there was almost too many new things while being handheld
through the process--writing my function to setting up rails and git, building
a simple app around the function, committing it to git hub and deploying it to
Heroku--I now have a sense for each of those steps, and I feel more confident
to try each again on my own.

------
bionicbrian
Rad! I dig your positive energy. You will go far with that.

I agree with what you said about the community. I am constantly amazed at the
amount of work and help people put out there for free.

~~~
vnchr
I tried to guess how much it would have cost to pay my friends at their
properly hourly rate for the help they freely gave... Yeah, too rich for my
blood :) But I gladly accept programming charity.

------
ben1040
So I surmise you must be in St. Louis. Hope to see you around at one of the
many various nerd meetups around town.

~~~
vnchr
Totally, come on out! We've been growing. There were about 15 of us last
night. 6 stayed until sunrise. It's been a great investment of my time.

------
excid3
Glad I could help you Israel! :)

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adolfojp
I like your attitude. Congrats.

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CitizenKane
Welcome to the club Israel! Always nice to see it when another programmer is
born!

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brianmckenzie
Hey, congratulations. I'm also in St. Louis so I joined your meetup group.

~~~
vnchr
Thanks, Brian. It's been a great experience, and I'm glad for anyone who wants
to share in that experience too.

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acctng
Feels good, doesn't it.

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VMG
I don't quite get your app but congratulations anyway

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mvanveen
Excellent! Now go forth and MUL, ADD, & JMP.

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antimora
wow, 10 hours later this post is on Google's index:
[http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&i...](http://www.google.com/search?gcx=w&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=Whys+Poignant+Comic+Book)

I remember times when it took weeks before the index is refreshed.

------
smoyer
Welcome to the family!

