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Ask HN: Founders from Non-IT/Programming Backgrounds

8 points by zengyro ↗ HN
I am curious as to how many web-based startup projects have got off the ground by people whose software development/programming skills were either self-taught or were perhaps spun out of a hobby project.

I am never short of ideas, but I would imagine that as a self-taught programmer myself, there must be certain implementation practices that would be obvious to a professional, but not so much to an amateur like me.

What are your thoughts?

9 comments

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eliot_sykes
Many coders start out self-taught like you. I did, and then studied for an IT degree and got professional work.

Here's a few things that I wasn't exposed to until I studied /turned professional - maybe some of these are the practices you are talking about?

- Version Control (Git, CVS, Subversion, etc.)

- Database design

- Performance optimization

- Caching

- Design Patterns

- Object oriented design

- Unit testing

Maybe you know these things already, but not knowing these things isn't going to stop you, none of those are worth losing sleep over, you'll pick up what you need on the way.

However, if I had to pick one thing out of that list that I wish I'd encountered sooner it would be version control.

imp
I agree with all of these, and I personally would say that the most important ones are version control and OOP. They're two that I put off for a while as a self-taught programmer, but have paid off the most.

I started with PHP, which lulls you into thinking that procedural programming is all you'll ever need. For larger and more complex code bases though, OOP really makes things more organized.

pascalchristian
so according to your experience, does going to college and getting an IT degree worth it? or should non-tech founders self-taught and continue with their startups anyway?
imp
I'm not the OP, but I'd recommend reading Founders At Work. I can't remember any specific examples, but I'm pretty sure that there's a mix of both self-taught and traditional CS founders who have been successful.
hga
My advice is to read the literature; that's what I did when I quickly realized the limitations of my initial high school programming class (punched card FORTRAN IV on an IBM 1130 in 1977).

That plus mentoring by the more experienced for a few years got me to at journeyman level in less than a decade. More reading, thinking and developing got me to master about two decades after I started.

apowell
I'm self-taught -- bought Frontpage in 1998 and a PHP/MySQL book from Sitepoint a couple years later and did all the examples. Building a successful web business has very little to do with how well you know the newest languages, fanciest design patterns, or fastest algorithms. Those considerations are way, way far behind 1) does it work 2) is it usable and 3) did I ship it?

Things that were non-obvious to me in the beginning: version control, database normalization, query optimization, and the importance of reliable infrastructure and testing your backups.

pascalchristian
Wow, I did not read this, I just started a thread very similar to this one. I am a self-taught coder myself, and since I dont live in Sillicon valley, I really wonder how is the attitude to non-tech founder in valley? From what I read in HN it seems that PG hates them with passion; how bout other early stage investors/VCs?
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