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Ask HN: I'm new to programing, any pointers?

7 points by armenarmen ↗ HN
I'm learning python with "Python the Hardway" and just now reading the "Django Book."

Some background I'm a business student, but I want to be able to build out cool webapps.

Any pointers for me? Resources, books, places to find quality source code, or anything else you think someone like me might benefit from?

9 comments

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read_wharf
Take an existing example Django demo app, and make it better. Change its look, add functionality, refactor it, change the back end, whatever "better" means to you at the moment.

Edit: added "demo."

s3ththompson
You've certainly come to the right community! Read Hacker News daily as a supplement to your programming self-study and you'll inevitably come across some great resources.

http://stackoverflow.com is your friend, and http://github.com is useful whether you have code to store there yourself or not.

bootload
"... Some background I'm a business student, but I want to be able to build out cool webapps. ..."

Can I suggest coming at this from another angle. Instead of looking at this as learning a language. Pick a problem you currently have and "try" solve it while learning a language at the same time. Then look back and review the code after you finish and start a new problem.

read: http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=learning+pr...

voodoochilo
well, the rabbit hole goes really very deep so there are many directions to head for, but i think the most important things to develop are infinite curiosity and an addiction to solving problems. qapla'!
armenarmen
Thanks everyone! I've been reading HN for a long time now and love it! I've messed around with codecademy a bit but was unmoved. I'm pursuing the "solve a problem" route now and as soon as I have something half decent written I'll throw it up on github!