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BaseRails Teach Yourself to Prototype Web Apps And learn to hack!

Teach Yourself to Build Web Apps

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This is a talk we did for our 4-week course on learning to build web apps. Teach yourself to hack and build an MVP that works.

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  • 1. BaseRails Teach Yourself to Build Web Apps And learn to hack!

2. BaseRails Alex Yang Instructor @BaseRails Harvard, AB in Applied Math Boston Consulting Group Left to start a food delivery company Freelancer for Codecademy Susie Ye Producer @BaseRails Rutgers University, PharmD. Founded used-books ecommerce company Launched Spriggle, social selling for STEM-inspired toys Who We Are 3. BaseRails Were two people who taught ourselves to code in 6 months Our Story 4. BaseRails It was painful. We wasted a huge amount of time. We googled a lot of bizarre errors, some of which took weeks to figure out. 5. BaseRails Heres what we would have told ourselves 1 year ago Disclaimer: This is just our approach from our own experiences. Hate it? Love it? Either way, let us know 6. BaseRails Lets say you have an idea for the next billion dollar startup 7. BaseRails You want to get something on the web as quickly as possible 8. BaseRails There are so many website builders and templates out there to build blogs, landing pages, and ecommerce stores 9. BaseRails But they all come with limitations 10. BaseRails Limitation #1: Difficult to customize 11. BaseRails Limitation #2: Doesnt include more in-depth features What if I want to do more than collect emails? 12. BaseRails Limitation #3: Doesnt serve your purpose But what if I want to build a marketplace? 13. BaseRails Limitation #4: Is often buggy and slow 14. BaseRails Your next step is probably to find someone to build it for you. 15. BaseRails But unless you want to pay $XX,XXX and be handcuffed to overseas developers every time you want to customize something, its not really a practical solution for most entrepreneurs. 16. BaseRails YOU JUST REALLY WANT YOUR MVP TO BE BUILT ALREADY! I mean, how hard can it be? 17. BaseRails YOU JUST REALLY WANT YOUR MVP TO BE BUILT ALREADY! I mean, how hard can it be? So you decide to do it yourself. 18. BaseRails Time to learn to code! 19. BaseRails Your Learning Road Map 20. BaseRails 2. JavaScript 1. HTML/CSS 3. Python/Ruby/PHP 5. Build your MVP 4. Django/Rails 21. BaseRails 2. JavaScript 1. HTML/CSS 3. Python/Ruby/PHP 5. Build your MVP 4. Django/Rails Not Really 22. BaseRails Learning specific languages from the ground up is NOT the best way to learn to prototype your web app 23. BaseRails Unless youre trying to become a web developer as a profession, learning computer theory and syntax is not the most efficient use of your time. 24. BaseRails Most people end up with nothing to show for their efforts 25. BaseRails Thats because learning to build web apps is different from learning to code 26. BaseRails So why are we still learning it the same way? 27. BaseRails 5 Lessons We Learned on Teaching Yourself to Prototype Web Apps 28. BaseRails Lesson #1: Start with an idea, aka, work on projects 29. BaseRails 30. BaseRails You dont have to feel ready to get started 31. BaseRails Sketch out what you have in mind before you start learning to code. That way, you can visualize the functionalities you need to build. 32. BaseRails Our first project was a property management marketplace called RoomTaker 33. BaseRails 34. BaseRails We knew nothing about HTML, CSS, Javascript, or Ruby on Rails. 35. BaseRails We just knew we wanted a popup form to collect names and emails when people clicked a button. 36. BaseRails If you dont start with an idea in mind, its easy to follow tutorials and end up with something irrelevant 37. BaseRails We stayed true to our initial vision. It took us 4 weeks to get it to work but we had our first MVP. 38. BaseRails Lesson #2: Dont memorize syntax, learn to recognize patterns 39. BaseRails 40. BaseRails This Ruby code may seem incomprehensible to you 41. BaseRails But if someone told you it was a form creator, and you can change some text to customize the fields, suddenly its not that scary. 42. BaseRails The same as with math, its all about filling in the blanks. 43. BaseRails Lesson #3: Type out everything, dont copy and paste 44. BaseRails We know we just said to recognize patterns and fill in the blank. 45. BaseRails We know we just said to recognize patterns and fill in the blank. But that doesnt mean you should just copy and paste your code from others! 46. BaseRails Typing out all the code lets you get the hang of a programming languages syntax. 47. BaseRails Youre not forcing yourself to memorize anything, but over time, youll be surprised at how much code you can write just from muscle memory. 48. BaseRails Lesson #4: Learn in layers 49. BaseRails Lets be honest the first time you see or write code, you probably wont understand it all. 50. BaseRails Lets be honest the first time you see or write code, you probably wont understand it all. And thats okay! 51. BaseRails You dont need to understand 100% of what youre doing the first time around 52. BaseRails You dont need to understand 100% of what youre doing the first time around (youll probably only understand 20%) 53. BaseRails Trying to master everything at once will slow you down, make you frustrated, and cause you to quit 54. BaseRails Repetition is key. Each time you work on a project, youll start to retain more and more information. 55. BaseRails Lesson #5: Hold yourself accountable 56. BaseRails No one likes going through boring exercises. Its easy to just quit in the middle. 57. BaseRails Being accountable to yourself is easier if you have a specific goal in mind 58. BaseRails Like finish building your wedding site 59. BaseRails Or showcase your MVP at a pitch event 60. BaseRails Its also easier if you have someone whos interested in your progress, like a mentor or friend 61. BaseRails Since we were working together on the same project, wed make sure the other person was making progress at the end of each day. 62. BaseRails 2 Months Later 63. BaseRails 2 Months Later We built out our second project: an online food delivery web app called FlipOrder 64. BaseRails It was a much more robust web app 65. BaseRails 66. BaseRails With features including menu listings 67. BaseRails 68. BaseRails a shopping cart 69. BaseRails 70. BaseRails and automated transactional emails when orders are placed. 71. BaseRails 72. BaseRails It took us 6 months from when we first started learning to code to build FlipOrder from scratch. 73. BaseRails It took us 6 months from when we first started learning to code to build FlipOrder from scratch. .and then we asked ourselves why there wasnt a place that taught this stuff 74. BaseRails I mean, 60% of what we learned was applicable to building any Rails app 75. BaseRails So to save others the time and energy it took us, we created BaseRails, a video learning platform for building web apps. 76. BaseRails So to save others the time and energy it took us, we created BaseRails, a video learning platform for building web apps. (Heres where we tell you about the awesome solution we created) 77. BaseRails 78. BaseRails Instead of memorizing syntax or reading programming books, we teach you to prototype your ideas by working on real projects like building an online marketplace. 79. BaseRails You start by building the base web app 11 Sections, 43 lectures, 7+ hours of content Installation Create Our Website Add front-end design Create listings with images Save and deploy on GitHub and Heroku Host images online Allow users to place orders Enable payments Transfer money to sellers 80. BaseRails 81. BaseRails Follow along the video screencasts with our word-for-word transcripts 82. BaseRails 83. BaseRails If you just want to get the code, view our Notes section 84. BaseRails 85. BaseRails If you get stuck on any video, just post your question in the troubleshooting forum and well respond within 24 hours. 86. BaseRails 87. BaseRails We also provide a video library of popular features so you can customize your app for your own idea. 88. BaseRails 89. BaseRails We think learning this way is infinitely more effective for building web apps 90. BaseRails In fact, check out one of our students projects he built with BaseRails 91. BaseRails 92. BaseRails Sign up at https://baserails.com to get started 93. BaseRails Hope this helped and thanks for viewing! Shoot us your questions, comments, or concerns at: [email protected] [email protected]