

50 Apps in 50 Weeks Challenge - kachhalimbu
http://www.50apps.org/

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ohyes
How about: 5 apps in 50 weeks challenge? Write 5 useful, stable, well designed
and tested apps in 50 weeks. Use whatever language/database seems easiest and
most productive.

I understand the desire to learn a lot of new things, but the hard part of
coding is not the first week. Practicing the first week over and over won't
get you many useful skills.

The hard parts of development are the marathon (keeping your
focus/motivation), and making everything actually perfect.

In the first week you can just get it to 'good enough'.

Subsequent weeks, you enhance things... this is where the flaws in what you
wrote in the first week really come out.

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MJR
This is interesting but the thought of installing and configuring all of the
underlying platforms, languages, frameworks and databases (assuming we all
have hardware to run them) gives me a headache.

I'd much rather see a 50 apps in 50 weeks with a much smaller base number of
languages. Almost like a 50 design patterns/recipes in 50 weeks for a few
languages.

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introspectif
I agree that the context switching costs are quite high, reducing the time
actually spent on coding. It might be better to focus on one
language/framework for five straight weeks, for example, while still changing
specific design patterns/recipes per week. It reduces switching costs, gives
devs time to grok new languages if need be, and should result in higher
quality code for each weekly project.

You might also let devs post fragments of their code as they work on it, and
links to their github repos. The reason is that a dev who is really learning a
lot, not just exercising existing skills, might get far off track if working
in isolation, like a plane that takes off at a heading that is slightly off,
and ends up hundreds of kilometers from its target. Plus, it would give more
time for people to discuss/debate alternate implementations, and that debate
itself would also be a great source of learning.

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cosmez
It looks like its a very expensive project.

iphone, ipad, android, win mobile, windows, embedded, mac even 3D..

not everyone has those toys already, i dont have the iphone and ipad for
example (not even an ios developer account)

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Zev
_not everyone has those toys already, i dont have the iphone and ipad for
example (not even an ios developer account)_

FWIW, if you have a Mac, you can get the iOS development environment from
Apple for free, and just run your apps on a simulator.

~~~
tibbon
But Oracle and Windows development then are issues, since last I checked much
the Microsoft development stuff isn't free.

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dmishe
Dunno about oracle (i heard about XE edition or something with limited
memory?), but MS Visual Studio has Express edition, which is free

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chetan51
Will the ideas for each week be suggested, along with what language to code
in? Or is it completely up to the participant what and when they want to make?

I think a well-defined plan that everyone follows would be more useful, since
we won't waste a lot of time trying to think of ideas, and we'll be more
likely to hit all the points. Plus, it'll keep everyone on the same page,
allowing people to share resources while trying to set up and learn the
platforms each week.

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tikhonj
They included Visual Basic but left out Haskell :(

All the Windows and Apple stuff isn't really an option for me either.

Overall, it's a good idea, but I'm not going to bother. Good luck to anyone
who does!

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PedroCandeias
Not sure if I'll manage to code for all these different plattforms, but what
the hell. Other people will have the same problem and we'll all learn
together.

Challenge accepted :)

