How to quickly but effectively become technically conversant

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8775398

by avni000 • 12 years ago

6 17 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

For a non-technical entrepreneur wanting to up her technical capabilities what would you recommend?

Not looking to be a programmer, but ideally learn enough to better lead and work with engineers and/or build a crappy prototype.

bjourne• 12 years ago

Sorry there are no shortcuts. Study as hard as you can and spend as many hours you can practicing programming. Then in a few years you'll be able to productively work with other developers.

avni0008• 12 years ago

Thanks for sharing your perspective - helpful.

cmstoken• 12 years ago

Spend a lot of time reading technical material, and be active on Twitter and other places were engineers hang out. Watching videos also helps. There's a lot of JS/Rails/Python stuff on YouTube etc...

avni0008• 12 years ago

Oh I hadn't thought about going to YouTube for videos - I'll certainly check that out. Thanks for your tips - definitely helpful!

Teichopsia2• 12 years ago

I'm still learning so take my advice with a grain of salt. That being said, first we ought to applaud you for taking the interest in understanding what goes on behind the scenes and better communicate with the engineers.

If I may, there are three courses you could look into. I've only taken the last one, which is fantastic for people that don't have a CS background. You'll learn about data structures.

The other two I just came across them today.

Now, the intent of this is only to give you a general idea of the amount of information these people deal with. If you happen to be a P.M. and deal with clients, this will help you avoid making promises for x feature to be ready x day due to lacking an understanding of what must be done to get it working. And so forth... Once again, I'm just starting, so take my advice with a grain of salt.

https://class.stanford.edu/courses/Engineering/CS101/Summer2... https://www.coursera.org/learn/insidetheinternet https://www.coursera.org/course/pythonlearn

ranty2• 12 years ago

Oh god, really. It's not that hard. If you're into it and enjoy learning about it, then your head just fills up. It's like moving to a new town and getting used to the place.

avni0008• 12 years ago

I agree with that - I've blown through a number of codeacademy and code school courses just because I've found it so interesting. But now I feel like I have this floating knowledge of some coding without a foundation of context to set it on. So would love to get recommendations of where to start with the real basics (like data structure etc).

avni0008• 12 years ago

Thanks for sharing these courses - I'll check them out. My hopes are to be a more effective marketer/product designer by understanding what it takes to bring it to life, as you mention.

zeeshanm• 12 years ago

I would say just learn basic data structures, and understand client/server model. Learning about these two will help you have conversation about how your product strategy goals go along with engineering design. You probably shouldn't need to talk with your engineers in deeper details but at design level.

Hope this helps.

avni0008• 12 years ago

This does help - thank you. Part of the challenge is understanding exactly what it is you're seeking to learn. This helps me narrow down what I should be trying to understand as I build my expertise.

ranty2• 12 years ago

There is only one way to learn: have a problem then solve it. It has to be a real one, too.

So go and find (small) problem, work out how to solve it and implement it. Then if you really want to learn: promote and sell the damn thing.

avni0008• 12 years ago

Thanks for this practical advice - I guess what you're saying is it doesn't matter if it's JS or Ruby or whatever, just play around until you figure it out. Will give that a shot.

How to quickly but effectively become technically conversant

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