Jimmy Wales: This is super cool. "I started to learn python..."

https://twitter.com/jimmy_wales/status/359640425268649984

by benn_88 • 13 years ago

99 32 13 years ago

xr09• 13 years ago

Jimmy Wales is a role model, you must have modesty and defined objectives to build that humongous platform and refuse to monetize, his quotations of "The Fountainhead" made me read it, awesome, the man really is a Howard Roark.

ig1• 13 years ago

Not to take away from his achievements but like Sal Khan (who has done similarly with Khan Academy) he'd already made his money in investment banking before entering the tech world.

It makes a huge difference when choosing to go the non-profit vs profit route when you're already personally well off.

pdog• 13 years ago

Eh, Sal Khan was a 30-something hedge fund analyst when he started Khan Academy. He's intelligent, hard-working, and could find work somewhere else, but he wasn't exactly "set for life" if the Khan Academy thing didn't work out. So don't let that stop you going the non-profit route!

gnosis• 13 years ago

Jimmy Wales did not build Wikipedia. Thousands upon thousands of unpaid volunteers did.

As for Howard Roark, who is supposed to epitomize Ayn Rand's "virtue of selfishness" ideal, I don't remember him being any kind of philanthropist. If anything, he (like Rand) has nothing but contempt for the masses.

Wikipedia would be the antithesis of what Roark would want to build. The Encyclopedia Britannica would be more to his liking, except that even it would require too much cooperation and would be made to help others and instead of himself.

Rand's ideal is the lone visionary designing his brilliant artwork for his own pleasure, and to the gnashing of teeth of the ignorant horde who are jealous of his genius.

wslh2• 13 years ago

I also think the Marxist concept of owing "something" to the historic process is missing in a lot of extreme selfish philosophies.

hobs• 13 years ago

You could say the same about any business owner if you said thousands of paid employees built their business. Almost nobody builds something that lasts by themselves.

AdamN• 13 years ago

Hmm, I don't know. Seems like much of Wikipedia is by smart people for smart people (like NPR). We all think of Wikipedia as the commons but it's far from it. Most people are on perezhilton.com all day.

Anyway, Ayn Rand was more against the falseness around giving and the betrayal of the recipient when he is given something he could never earn.

nhangen• 13 years ago

I agree with this. The Fountainhead is one of my favorite books, but Wales is no Roark.

vacri2• 13 years ago

'unpaid volunteer' is a tautology in this context.

Caketh• 13 years ago

For the commenter's applauding Jimmy Wales' new language skills, he's referring to the story of Amy Mather and her adventures with python and the Raspberry Pi. Linked video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a35XINnYFtA

dade_• 13 years ago

I suggest reading the article before making a comment.

Jimmy Wales tweeted, "This is super cool!" about a girl presenting her Raspberry Pi story, "I started to learn Python...".

mathattack• 13 years ago

This is even more cool. His encouragement will go a long way for her.

Cthulhu_• 13 years ago

Which makes me wonder, why is Wales' tweet linked here as the news, whilst it's the original article that should be linked and upvoted?

vacri2• 13 years ago

It should still be flagged for not linking to actual content. It is, effectively, blogspam.

booop• 13 years ago

I don't share his enthusiasm about this. Doesn't everyone interested in computers/computing start programming things that are actually useful at roughly that age?

Also, is an early start a guarantee that someone will choose a career in computing?

netcan• 13 years ago

no.

speedyrev• 13 years ago

Well, since the Commodore 64 wasn't released until I was 18 yrs old, my answer is no.

scrabble2• 13 years ago

No, and no.

A fair percentage of people who start developing software early end up being passed by people who started later. A seemingly large factor of this is kids learning bad habits on their own and not being able to correct them later, or having a much more difficult time correcting them. (I'm not saying that is the case here, just generally.)

14113• 13 years ago

I hear this a lot, but I've never seen actual evidence of it. Everyone who started early that I've seen in computer science classes has been better than people who started later.

malux85• 13 years ago

Nope! But it would be great if the general population had some proficiency in programming, even if they don't choose a career in computing.

My partner is an aspiring film maker, but knows how to parse a CSV in python and do pattern matching, he was looking for funding and needed to pull all of the "x.com" domains out of a giant spreadsheet .. for him, simple, export as CSV and string match the email field.

This simple skill alone, put him miles ahead of the other film makers in his class, the others were using "find" in excel and copy pasting, he was done in 15 minutes, the others took hours.

There's so many examples where account managers, secretaries, business analysts, chemical engineers etc benefit from simple data matching. They're not going to write the next facebook, and are not interested in a "programming" / "computing" career, but data extraction and simple programming is becoming a basic skill like reading and writing, and it's all good I say!

44Aman• 13 years ago

Do you have links to any good tutorials about programming (in any language) for this purpose?

broseph• 13 years ago

Just in case this is a recurring task - he could be done in 10 seconds using Excel's autofilter functionality. http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-use-custom-filt...

I don't doubt the usefulness of programming to the non-technologist, but Excel proficiency can be even more useful. It's so much more than just a container for CSVs!

djm_• 13 years ago

You're missing the point. This is about reducing the barrier to entry to programming; not just by abolishing the standard stereotypes that only boys do it but by providing affordable computing for children in a way that they could feasible save their pocket money to buy a machine and get going.

I saved for my first machine when I was 14 by keeping my lunch money and only eating a bag of crisps a day for over a year; this kid doesn't have to do that..

siddboots• 13 years ago

Doesn't everyone interested in computers/computing start programming things that are actually useful at roughly that age?

Sure, lots of people do, but it's nice to listen to her talk about it all the same.

There was one part: "Although it sometimes may be hard, or your programs sometimes won't work, once you do get it to work you feel really happy."

I thought that part was nice.

anonymoushn• 13 years ago

I was learning Java in my first programming course and making nothing worthwhile in TI basic around that age.

metaphorm• 13 years ago

I wrote my first Hello World when I was 23 years old. I didn't write anything that could be described as "useful" (i.e. not a trivial practice exercise or a homework assignment) until I was 25. now I've got a degree in computer science and I'm a professional developer.

not everyone takes the same path through life.

progx• 13 years ago

Really important Hacker News. I started to learn node.

Jimmy Wales: This is super cool. "I started to learn python..."

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