So, you want to learn how to program and build a website

Generic advice for non-technical people who are contemplating starting a website project. It's generic advice, but it's important.

There is a level of complexity that cannot be built without learning about the technology, not at any price. Technology is a funny thing, there is a point where throwing money at the problem cannot substitute for actually knowing the technology. I would say in the last 10 years, this effect has become even more powerful than it was before.

It's pretty common for people to try to start technology-based businesses by hiring programmers, but that fails because if you don't understand the technology, you can't control the programmer's work. Programming is a peculiar craft. There are no discipline where the information asymmetry is larger. When a programmer tells you "I promise I'll be ready next week", you have no way to verify whatsoever, unless you have significant technology training yourself.

If you have trusted technology friends on board, then you are good to go. So long as you don't need to hire programmers, you're golden.

But look at how many people it took to build kickstarter. I guarantee you most people on this page are elite technologists. Building website gets real hard, real quick, knock-your-socks-off quick even. Or look at Padmapper. At first view it might appear to be a rather simple website. But the guy who built it is MIT Computer Science '07. He lists as programming languages: Objective-C (iPhone/iPod Touch), SQL, PHP, Ruby on Rails, Javascript, JQuery, Java, C, HTML, CSS, Google Maps (see PadMapper), Microcontrollers. Again, not someone who spent the last week reading a web page on how to program. We're talking about top-of-top-line, world class programmers. These people cost $100'000 to $200'000 a year, but you probably can't hire them because they are too busy starting their own thing, and even if they weren't, people like that don't work for people who don't know tech. That's how hard this stuff gets.

There are three paths forward for non-techies:

1. Associate yourself with trusted techie friends who believe in you and will work alongside of you (you can't be their boss.)
2. Start brainstorming ideas for businesses that aren't so tech-heavy.
3. Learn a lot of tech.

And of course, the more of #3 you do, the more techie your #2 can be. Otherwise, Wordpress goes a long way, even in the hand of someone with limited tech knowledge. And if you take a short course on web technologies, it should empower you to make Wordpress sing with all its got.

The good news is, as a 2nd reason for why programming is a peculiar craft, it is actually possible to learn how to program at a professional-level without taking classes. But not everyone can pull it off. So, if you are going to take a course, get the most out of your money. Which means, try to learn as much programming as possible on your own before starting the course.

Good resources:

• Try Ruby
• Code Academy
• How can I learn to program in Python (at Quora)
• Khan Academy's programming course

There is no need to spread wide. Pick one teacher (a single book, etc) and follow them for a while. The first task in front of you is to learn how to program. Once you know how to program, you can pick up 10-20 languages easily. Learning a new programming language is super easy, learning how to program is hard.

If you are in for the long term, and you want a principled, in-depth, Computer-Science-y approach, then learn with Racket as a starter language, then transfer to a popular pro language.

•   This is the Racket book, and this is WeScheme, the tool to write your programs with.