Show HN: What Have You Done Today that is Kick Ass? | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: What Have You Done Today that is Kick Ass?

didyoukickass.com

5 pointsforgingahead3 comments

Love the site; I too am in the process of making the transition from being just the "sales guy" into a semi-competent tech guy. Right now I'm paying a dev to build my MVP in Rails but have taught myself HTML, CSS, and am learning Javascript. I'd be curious to hear which resources you used to get proficient in Rails--I've checked out a little bit of Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby, Hackety Hack, and a few random tutorials but haven't immersed myself completely into learning the language just yet. Do you have any suggestions for steps to take to get to the level you're currently at? Also, about how many hours did it take? I'm still working my day job but learning/coding nights and on the weekends.

Also some suggestions:

-Include a truncated list of the latest submissions on the home page and put the input field on top, so users can see what else is being posted without having to click through (although I do appreciate the simplicity and I'm sure you debated that).

-When you get some time, put a basic logo together. Doesn't have to be too complicated, just some typeface/color tweaking a la TFLN.

-Include option to tweet out individual submissions (even if you're not the poster), maybe include custom hastag like #kickass or something.

Cheers and good luck!

Cheers, thanks for the comments and feedback. Am definitely looking to improve features and functionality so will do so in a bit.

I can't remember how I decided to learn Ruby on Rails specifically (versus another language/framework), but I left my corporate job in Jan and started to seriously learn a week later. These are some of the resources I used in relative order:

1. http://www.tryruby.org/ 2. http://ruby.railstutorial.org/chapters/beginning#top 3. http://railsforzombies.org/labs 4. http://railscasts.com/ (For specific video tutorials) 5. http://railsforum.com/index.php (For specific questions) 6. http://www.stackoverflow.com

I honestly picked up most of the basics from the Michael Hartl tutorial (second link), and then through googling specific features I wanted to add. I did a bunch of long-walks-and-turnarounds (eg: tried to put together my own authentication system for a week before I discovered Devise), but going from nothing to some basic knowledge took me around 3 weeks of plugging away.

I was (am still) working on a completely unrelated startup, so Kickass was a dedicated project initially but then became a side thing over the next few months. I've just finished the MVP on my own for my startup platform which is much more sophisticated than Kick Ass.

So it's been about 5 months, but about 3 weeks initially just pushing hard, and then bits and pieces over the next few months. I spent about 5 days a few weeks ago just focused on Kick Ass to finish it with the current features, and then spent another few days figuring out the infrastructure stuff (setting up the server, deploying to prod, database basics, etc).

But it's extremely simple - knowing what I know now, I could redo it from scratch in a few days. But if you're starting from zero like I did, then it'll be a few weeks of hard slog before things start making sense.

Definitely doable, and completely worth it - did some sales stuff this week demo'ing the startup MVP I built myself, and that's been a really good feeling. I know nothing about design or CSS, so once the functionality for the MVP was done I grabbed a theme off themeforest.net

Good luck with your learning! Hope to see your project here soon.

This is my first attempt at a Rails app - non-technical background, got tired of being just the "idea/sales" fellow so decided to start learning. (though I have a new appreciation for the skills I do have, and for all the tech guys I harassed with silly questions over the years).

Please let me know all comments/feedback, would love to hear them all. Some of the code that I look at now makes me feel I could have done a cleverer job, but hey, next time.

Clickable: http://www.didyoukickass.com

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