Monkey See, Monkey Do

A brief introduction to our main tools...

So, we want to build commercial grade solutions without knowing how to code, right?

At least I did. Since before discovering code I always wanted to offer development options for my clients. This naturally led me to our FUNDAMENTAL TOOLS:

1. Youtube

2. Google

3. Stack Overflow

Following in someone else’s footsteps, line by line of code, forced me to research just what exactly I was writing and what I could expect it to do. Seeing stuff happening out of gibberish made me curious: What is going on behind the screen when I run this line of code? What do the weird characters even mean? {} ? []? **kwargs? wut???

Without this curiosity, there is no real progress. Just copying lines of code a coder does not make according to the elder cavemen. Find the divine/magical/alien inspiration to start making your own basic tools like the wheel, an axe or a hammer (simple, remember?) and start attuning yourself to the cavemen’s curiosity.

So with all that said, I’ll share a little bit about how I used this tools and how I eventually learned the most minimum basics for coding…

Good news and bad news.

Let’s get the bad news out of the way: We can’t sell whatever we build if we don’t understand it perfectly. Making something work is one thing, ensuring continuity of service and maintenance is a whole other thing. Nobody is going to buy a disposable solution (without even starting about usability and optimization) with no support and no confidence in the technical expertise of the service provider. No dinner for stupid cavemen.

But, I got some good news:

Building something from scratch, even if the building process is a bit obscure, is sometimes more than enough to ensure commercial viability. As long as we pay attention and do our due diligence when following the steps of others, most probably someone out there has a use for our creation. Finding a somewhat wheel shaped stone and making it a wheel makes you an expert on this particular wheel because you know its strengths, weaknesses and mistakes is sort of what I’m saying.

Starting out small and committing to providing a service (a true business commitment, no slacking off!) for a client (yourself, your dad, your grandma, etc. no need to kill mammoths yet) forces your hand: You’ll find that users are very creative in breaking your tools, or using them in unconventional and unintended ways (this is bad). Fixing problems that emerge from the unorthodox use of your tool will develop a wide array of skills for you:

1. Testing

2. Communication

3. Project Management

4. Research

5. Bug Fixing

6. Feature implementation

7. Networking (if online service)

8. ??? (Fun)

So, I wrote all this text just to invite you:

Steal like an artist! But make it your own.

Establish a simple idea. Follow tutorials and copy the code. Learn how and why they are doing the stuff they are doing. Read the comments to look for people pointing out the mistakes, or proposing a better way to do a particular thing. Google search everything that you don’t understand, even the most basic things. Direct Message the video uploader asking your questions. Don’t be shy, there are no stupid questions! Remember that coding requires a commitment to learn, not coding skills at first.

In the next entry, I’ll be demonstrating everything we talked about here to one of my projects: a video calling android app. You’ll get to see first hand the meaning behind the title of this blog… Stay tuned and let me know what you would like to see!