Okay,

So I should provide perspective into what exactly it is that I’ve done so far.

Last year (2011-12) I bought a book called “Head First Python”. It cost more money than I thought it would and I haven’t really seen a lot of value come out of it. I stalled pretty quickly when I tried to learn last year. I’m looking forward to using it for reference going forward and this is one of the reasons I feel much better about Round Two.

There’s another very decent reason why, too. It’s called Codecademy and in my brief experience, it is absolutely fantastic. The layout is clear and intuitive, the lessons are concise and well made and there is a very helpful forum of people ready to assist your learning along the way. I have been using Codecademy for about a month at this point. I highly recommend you sign up ASAP and register for the Python course (it’s completely free).

So far I have completed the first 58 lessons. This brings me to “Project: Pyglatin” or the second part of Unit Three. I have learned a great deal and I really feel like my foundation is strong. Of course, I have zero reference so I could be doing a terrible job, but again: optimism.

Here is a list of the topics I’ve covered and (ideally) learned so far.

1. Syntax – Variables, Integers, Booleans and Floats.
2. Whitespace
3. Statements
4. How to set variables
5. How to add comments
6. Mathematical equations (+, -, /, *,**, %)
7. Strings
8. String Methods (len(), .upper(), .lower(), string())
9. Print function
10. Concatenation
11. Explicit String Conversion
12. String Formatting
13. Conditionals & Control Flow
14. Comparators
15. Boolean Operators
16. If, Else, If

I know that none of that is helpful at all for someone just starting out. However, I have been keeping a Google Doc with all my notes in it so far and I’m going to make it public to all my readers (haha).  Here is the link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eoyUnz03tH1OUlvrG81VR1mEpDm21MM2zO5Iyvv0NAk/edit

I hope that helps some people as it has helped me in review and in clarification. From now on, I’ll be writing a post about what I’ve learned directly after learning it along with some helpful hints.

Let’s get started!

– Conor M. Logan

I realize starting off my first post “Hello Readers” may be presumptive of me to believe this blog will actually get any eyes over the next few months but I figure I might as well be optimistic.

This blog was an idea that came to me a few days ago when I realized that there are very few firsthand accounts of someone learning to code (or maybe I just didn’t look hard enough). This is a problem for two reasons.

1. For me, demonstration is a much easier way to pick up a skill than dictation. That is to say I am a highly visual learner. When I decided that I would learn how to program, I searched somewhat exhaustively for a firsthand account of someone learning to code from scratch and came up empty handed. I’m certain I’m not the only person who learns most effectively in this manner and I surely cannot be the only visual learner who wants to add a programming language to their tool belt. When people decide to learn how to code, they always want to know where to start. The problem is, there is no defined starting line or finish line. Hell, it took me weeks just to decide what language to learn first (I chose Python if you couldn’t tell). I believe that one of the most difficult things about learning to code is getting started. Like Woody Allen once said, “Showing up is eighty percent of life”.
2. Technology has been getting cooler (subjectivity warning) for the past few years. The more widely accepted it gets, the more people will need resources with which to educate themselves. I’ll expound more upon this in my next blog post.

My hope is that my triumphs and follies will provide good perspective to beginners on where to start, how to progress and what materials are most helpful.

– Conor M. Logan

Intro

Hello Readers,

My name is Conor Logan. I am a senior Finance student at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

Wait, no I’m not. That’s what I should be. Instead, I’m a guy who co-founded a startup called CompeteLeap with my partner, dropped out of school and dropped into the world of technology. I find that it lends my situation a good deal of credibility when I mention that my co-founder is much older than I am. So I’ll mention that my partner is around a decade older than me. Without going into too much detail, we provide comprehensive web presence solutions to small businesses.

I guess you could say that I was bit by the startup bug. At one time I was very interested in financial markets and I spent a great deal of my time absorbing every bit of information and theory relating to that field of study. It was extremely interesting to me and kept my attention for long amounts of time. This is no small feat given the fact that I have diagnosed ADD and ADHD. I’ve more or less grown out of the H but the AD stubbornly sticks around. After a while though, financial markets and professions began to feel somewhat vapid to me. Where was the value creation? No doubt these jobs are necessary and no doubt they provide value to their clients and stockholders but how have they moved us all forward?

I began to explore other fields and happened upon something called entrepreneurship. It was absolutely enthralling to me and I had never been more excited. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk. These were the new heroes (in fact, the character of Tony Stark is based off of Elon Musk – making him a superhero twice removed). They were men who had blazed their own trails to build products they were passionate about and never looked back. This attitude resonated with me as I was never a big fan of school, preferring an autodidactical route when possible. I often dreamed of getting out of useless classes and learning about things that really interested me. When I started reading blogs like TechCrunch and SAI, it was all over. I knew what I wanted to do with the next few years of my life.

This all may sound crazy to most but to me, it made far more sense than sitting in classes that could not hold my interest. And on the other hand, the path associated with that catch-all buzzword “startups” seemed so exciting! You got to eschew traditional post graduate responsibilities in favor of creating something uniquely your own. The cherry on top was the chance to create real value for the world in the form of products, money and jobs. When the prospects of CompeteLeap looked promising, I took the proverbial Leap. Rarely do I look back in regret or longing. The hours are long and the work can be challenging but change and effort are necessary for progress and I can confidently say I have derived far more value out of this experience than any theoretical case study I was ever assigned in school.

Since the first day I became interested in startups, I have had ideas circling my head nearly every day. Some have been great and some have been not so great but one theme that linked them all was execution. More specifically, the lack thereof. I was always wondering when someone who could handle the programming part of the equation would fall from the sky. It took me a while to figure it out but I finally realized that no one was going to sign up to build my product for me. So, I needed to learn how to code. What a daunting task it seemed to be and boy did it sound like no fun at all. I know it has to be done though and so this blog will be my attempt to chronicle my journey to becoming my own technical co-founder. I have an idea now that I believe is great and I need to be able to build it myself. That is my goal and I hope to be finished by Spring 2012.

– Conor M. Logan

Disclosures: I have zero technical background, I know very little about computer science and I have only started approaching this seriously within the past few months. I am only going to be learning as much as as need be to build myself a working and functional prototype. That is my background. It is up to you, the reader, to decide if I’m a credible source to be looking to when approaching this monumental undertaking.

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