
Quit Job, Learning to Code - emilepetrone
http://www.proudn00b.com/post/832363423/learn-change-start-day-1
======
albertsun
I don't mean to imply anything about the poster of this article in particular,
but I seem to recall a saying something like...

When your uncle the mechanic starts giving stock tips, you know a bubble is
brewing.

I think we're already in the middle of a web/mobile/social app bubble.

~~~
nlh
So this is an interesting point that's worth exploring. I hear what you're
saying (everyone and his brother is trying to make a buck making apps these
days) but.....

I do kinda think that making apps is actually creating something vs. day
trading (profiting on volatility/others' mania) vs. mortgage brokering
(profiting on volatility/others' mania) vs. real estate flipping (profiting on
volatility/others' mania).

So while there may be a "development bubble", I think it can only really be a
good thing. More creativity. Now, when it stops becoming profitable to do so
(i.e. app prices / advertising revenue reverts to the mean) then you'll see
the opportunistic types vanish.

But I think deciding to build/create applications in and of itself shouldn't
be seen as a bad thing...

~~~
emilepetrone
This comment is the best one I've read tonight. Thanks for the reply - totally
agree.

But I'm not sure of the development bubble piece- if there were sites starting
with i,e, or x popping up everywhere, I'd be very scared haha

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seltzered
from his info page: "SF 7/19 - 8/3 Charlotte, NC - 8/3 - 8/7 Knoxville, TN -
8/8 - 8/9 Longboat Key, FL - 8/10 - ????"

On your about page, you mention that you're possibly touring? Just curious,
have you factored in how much stress you might have going to another town
every week? Will you have some friends/coding buddies to talk to during your
trip?

I'm really not trying to be condescending, it's just that I recently tried
spending a week vacation working on a personal project in a remote place, and
I ended up spending more time finding the right coffee shop to work in,
understanding the transit system, etc. than I did actually working. In any
case, definately wish you the best of luck.

~~~
emilepetrone
I'll add more information. Going to stay with family & have a wedding to go
to. But after that its going to family house and getting away from SF
distractions. Thanks for the well wishes!

~~~
ahemphill
I'm curious too — I'm moving to SF on Friday and would love to find some like-
minded people with whom I can live.

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ora600
I learned today that I may be losing my H1B soon. I can stay in the US as I'm
married to another H1B holder, but I will not be able to work.

Since I dislike being idle, my first thought is to pack up and move back to my
home country to look for a job. But this article represents an interesting
path that I may follow myself.

Thanks for inspiring me to view lack of work permit as an opportunity and not
a major life crisis.

~~~
emilepetrone
Booya! Thats great- grab the bull by the horns! Let me know if I can help
further just tweet me @emilepetrone

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watmough
You might want to post a short summary here, as it's an interesting story.

What type of job did you give up? I'm definitely interested in your story and
following your blog.

~~~
emilepetrone
I'll make it more in depth tonight & get a solid post out tomorrow. Thanks for
the comment!

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cloudkj
I'm in pretty much the same situation as you, fast-forwarded a few weeks.
However, I decided to take the plunge into learning iPhone development. Once
you start playing with it, you'll realize why the iPhone is such a compelling
platform and such a hit in the mobile apps space. Apple made it really hard
for anyone to build a crappy experience.

Tangentially, I'm not really enjoying the learning experience since going
through the book (the grapefruit book) is pretty much the same as doing a
bunch of tutorials. I still don't feel like I understand the overall
architecture of an iPhone app and how the various pieces connect. Anyone have
good book recommendations?

~~~
emilepetrone
So you dove right into Objective C?

~~~
cloudkj
Simultaneously reading the iPhone dev book and going through the Objective-C
manual from Apple. Objective-C is pretty easy to understand as long as you
understand object-oriented programming and have a solid grasp on C. It's just
learning it AND the iPhone platform at the same time that is a little harder.

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petercooper
Nice post but.. please, please, please make your links stand out some way.
There are lots of useful links in there but they're exactly the same color and
style as the body text!

~~~
emilepetrone
Hear you loud and clear- great feedback

~~~
Scriptor
Also, I'm not really a fan of reading text in monospaced fonts. Others may
disagree, but reading code and reading regular text are very different things.

~~~
emilepetrone
keep the comments coming...coffee is brewing and changes are coming

~~~
petercooper
FWIW, I actually like(d) the monospace font but.. I spent most of the 80s and
90s reading long texts that way. It's somehow nostalgic. I admit it's probably
a niche fetish though ;-)

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bosch
Good luck. Maybe give some info on why you decided to learn certain
technologies over other ones. Would be interesting to see what a n00b with no
perceived bias chooses.

~~~
emilepetrone
K Will do

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christonog
Hey Emile, did you do the E-ship program at UNC by chance? I think I remember
you..

Anyway, I'm following the same path (teaching myself to program to work on my
own projects). It's been fun (some days I feel like I can do anything with a
computer) and challenging (other days I want to rip my hair out and hide in
despair). I've been doing it for about a year and a half now.

I think the biggest challenge with non-programmers learning how to program is
that it takes an exceptionally long time to get even the most basic
functionality running. So work on the most basic thing, and even if it looks
ugly in the beginning, just keep iterating on it. I started with Ruby and
Rails, but you can't go wrong with Python and Django in the beginning.

If you want to see what lots of time and a little bit of programming on your
own can give you, check out my little app www.getsetapp.com.

Good luck man, and let me know the next time you're in NC.

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Ygor
This is an interesting schedule. I like how you added the social component.
This days you can't do anything without the social component. :)

"5:30 AM - Wakeup

5:30 AM - 7:30AM - Read blogs, articles, mail, write blog post

7:30 AM - 12 PM - Code without distractions (turn on SelfControl)

12 PM - 1:30 PM - Run, workout, make some quick food

1:30 PM - 6PM - Ignore desire for a nap, Code & Coffee 6PM - Get out of the
house and meet people!"

Do you really plan to uphold it every day? Or is it more like a flexible
guide? This times look pretty tight. Did you plan it concerning your personal
preferences (early wakeup, how much sleep?), or more on the general work day
"normal people" expected schedule. And do you really need to write a blog post
every day? Don't you think all this will be a distraction?

~~~
emilepetrone
Logic behind a schedule- I used to row at UNC, and we had practice twice a
day. Having the same schedule over and over again creates a certain amount of
comfort within the repetition. It's 6am now- been responding to comments &
emails since 5:30, so yep holding to it! The blog post a day will serve as a
marker for the previous days accomplishments, and thoughts for the process
ahead.

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pbjorklund
Interesting "project". I think you should fill out the "why" and perhaps "how"
pages with more information. It was hard for me to really understand what you
are doing and why you decided to do this radical thing.

~~~
emilepetrone
Will do- great feedback

~~~
DTrejo
tip, hang out on #startups via irc.freenode.net when you're bored / want to
say hello to fellow hackers. I'm in the bay too btw, so if you're at the next
eastbay HN meetup I'll see you there.

~~~
emilepetrone
awesome will do...yeah i'll be there!

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binaryfinery
"Learn to Code, Quit Job" might be wiser?

~~~
emilepetrone
Tried that while I was still at Redbeacon. It's very difficult because you are
in this start/stop mentality from the daily grind. Also it kept me tied down.
If you don't take the leap, you don't have the full weight of the situation on
top of you. Thoughts?

~~~
watmough
I downloaded the iPhone SDK in March 2008, whilst on vacation in DC. After
working with it for a few months, I quit my job, but in that case, I'd written
a few non-trivial programs and knew writing Objective-C and Cocoa code was
what I wanted to do. Sure as hell beat writing business software and teaching
C# to business grads, though anything is fun if you're determined to enjoy it.

Total pay cut, maybe $160k and rising. Yeah, still the right decision, though
money has been _tight_.

The key point is that I had a solid grasp of what I needed to do technically
to survive after quitting, and I was not jumping into the unknown, just the
not yet done.

~~~
emilepetrone
Good points..will answer in next post

