Re:Ask HN: Okay okay, I'll learn to program...now what?
by dingle_thunk on Tuesday August 17, 2010 @03:13AM
(#1610481)
Why buy a new machine? http://www.microsoft.com/web/webmatrix/
http://virtualbox.org
Re:Ask HN: Okay okay, I'll learn to program...now what?
by dmor on Tuesday August 17, 2010 @03:14AM
(#1610483)
#1 is really good advice, and not just because of the pretty hardware. It's really easy (from my experience anyway, as a relatively new developer) to get derailed by having setup issues, so opt for something that removes as much friction as possible
1. Buy a Linux or Mac computer, because all the standard parts work quickly and simply on those platforms and are difficult to run on Windows. That, or have a remote computer where you do your dev work.
2. Learn Ruby or Python. It doesn't matter which. People on HN seem to love Python, but there's no substantial difference if you're using them to build web applications.