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ryana | 11 years ago
I see comments to this effect every now and then on HN (ie. any skilled team could build out Facebook in 30 days)
It's great to shoot for the stars and have faith in yourself, folks, but shockingly lots of people who get paid to program also happen to be REALLY GOOD at what they do.
While I could focus on the benefits of a little bit of humility (and they are many) instead I'll say that there are people who come on to these sites and see ridiculous statements like this and will suddenly start to wonder what's the point of learning to code if they'll only be good once they can build any app in a weekend.
So no, there aren't people who can build any app on the market in a weekend. And that doesn't mean that any of those people are bad at what they do.
blauwbilgorgel|11 years ago
Yes, there are a lot of coders on here that can code your MVP or a basic mobile app in 48 hours. And I think some of them are still constantly learning new ways to code and getting better.
I made no qualitative statements about these topcoders vs. those coders who can't (or won't) deliver in a weekend.
> ...will suddenly start to wonder what's the point of learning to code if they'll only be good once they can build any app in a weekend.
I think that's more of an issue with self-esteem than it is with the observation that there are hackers on here who can crank out production-ready code in a short amount of time.
HN really seemed to like the posts by Jennifer Dewalt (http://jenniferdewalt.com/). It is not unwelcome to starting coders. You may be interested in Norvig's article: http://norvig.com/21-days.html "Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years" which aligns much more with my true view on this.
Speed is not everything. Often these weekend hacks lack market demand, lack user experience, can't overcome the chicken-and-egg problem.