

Ask HN: Advice on the very first steps to becoming a great hacker/founder? - dmof

Apologies if this may seem like an odd question, but I'm unsure where to start.<p>Over the past couple of years I've done coding in XHTML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, and some JavaScript in my own time. However I've fallen a bit out of practice with this because I wasn't devoting enough time to it.<p>Just finished school today and want to go at this full-force.<p>Hoping I can get a little advice on where to begin. Eventually want to be in the tech/web startup area of course.<p>I'm about to start hacking away at some PHP again and re-studying everything I know and of course adding to my knowledge.<p>Is PHP a good choice or should I be going with something else? Any advice on all the DB options?<p>Really just looking for general advice, not sure how else to phrase this, and I'm very sure this is the best possible place to inquire!<p>Thanks a huge amount to anybody who can shoot a few words of wisdom this way.
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runT1ME
>Is PHP a good choice or should I be going with something else

Anything else, really. PHP wasn't a language designed for development, it was
a language designed to allow HTML coders to quickly do small web-app like
things that was previously only something CGI could do.

I'd look into Ruby, Java, Scala, C#, clojure, python instead.

MySQL is a fine DB. I'd start coding right away, its the only way to get
better.

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andymoe
Find mentors - start by surrounding yourself with smart people who write lots
of code and smart people who run businesses of their own. Write lots of code,
ship/push often. Repeat.

