18 months ago I didn’t know how to code, I’m now a self-taught programmer who’s made apps for the NBA, NHL, and schools like Purdue, Notre Dame, Alabama and Clemson. I’m now releasing my software under the MIT license for anyone’s use — AMA!

Which 4 books did you use and in what order? Did you have a history of programming? I'd love to know where to start.

For iOS pick up (1) book on learning Swift; (2) Big Nerd Ranch book on making "practice" apps with Swift. For Android pick up (1) book on learning Java; and (2) Big Nerd Ranch book on making "practice" apps with Java.

With those four books, you should have a very strong foundation for getting out to sites like StackOverflow.com and advancing from there.

Which swift book did you use?

At the time when I was picking up iOS programming, there were few good Swift books, so I learned Obj-C instead. It was good in that there was so much more open-source software written in Obj-C than Swift, which helped me through my early stages. A lot of my code is still written in Obj-C, it's actually my favorite language (likely because it was the first I learned), and I'll miss it.

Is selling to Google the dream?

Yes

how much time did you spend learning per day?

About four hours, seven days a week, for six months. Then I spent the next few months with programming as my basically full-time job, so I was pretty immersed from the get-go.

cool. any tips on staying motivated and getting disciplined?

For me, it's always just been a lot of pressure I put on myself. I want to succeed so that this pressure will finally go away. Me_irl.

So if you used a phased array could you make the lights rotate around the arena?

Dude that's brilliant. We have done waves and other things like that, but with a section-entry UI, so the users could tell the program they were in section 101, for example.

Having them scan their ticket's barcode may be easier.

Yes, someone actually mentioned that to me last month and it's definitely something we should implement.

We have done waves and other things like that, but with a section-entry UI, so the users could tell the program they were in section 101, for example.

I think this is one of the most innovative and clever apps I've seen in a very long time. Congrats man!

Thanks!

Do you have an example of your code? (not necessarily the code you wrote for these apps.)

Mostly I'm curious how far you've managed to get in 18 months. I find that most people who start learning how to program don't actually get very far and level off quickly. They seem to get stuck writing procedural code and never learn software engineering architecture. Though I suspect you may have pushed yourself to actually learning OOP and Design Patterns and Architecture and things like Unit Testing / TDD.

Yes, I recently posted this software to GitHub. I typically don't work with other devs so my style may be very different, but this is the software that got me to where I am and I'd be lucky if others thought it was good enough for them to use as well.

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Yes, I actually have yet to cooperate with a single other developer so I've ended up (unfortunately) with a different style that might be hard to work with. It's something I'll need to fix in the future, but thanks for the tips!

The only question that actually matters: do you indent with tabs or spaces?

100% tabs

This is awesome, did you make a lot of $$$ from it?

Considering our initial investment was $0, the ROI has been infinite.

Well you had to buy the books...

You're right. That lowers our ROI from infinity to around 3.50%.

Did you have do anything to protect yourself and your development from the minor hockey team you first intended to use it for? Like claims that it should be exclusively theirs?

This is a very tricky subject. Basically the issue was solved by letting the owner of the hockey team in on the software startup.

How did you extract the inaudible signals from background noise?

A fast fourier transformation. There are some great libraries for doing this in Android/iOS like audiokit and jtransforms.

Did you have a background in DSP or math already, or did you learn that as you went too?

My background was economics.

How much of your own money did you spend before making money?

We didn't invest a single dollar. It was all contributions of time, way way too much free time.

How did you pay the bills while you were learning / coding for 18 months?

Doing econometrics for the hockey team. It was a place where, say I finished my work at 1 PM, I could spent from 1 to 5 PM studying how to code.

How much time average did you spend to develop your programming skills? Daily average, weekly and monthly or whichever is easier to quantify.

Daily is probably the easiest. For the first six months after I picked up my first programming book, I put in about four hours a day. Then I started actually working on apps. At first these were minor league apps for hockey teams, and they kinda sucked. But it helped me improve to the point where I could pretend to hang with the big boys. Classic tale of fake it till you make it.

great job, what books did you read?

The exact four books I read are:

Learning Obj-C

Learning Java

iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

However, I would now recommend learning Swift instead of Obj-C. At the time when I was looking into iOS books, good books on Swift were few and far between.

Did you read them in that order or sort of all at once? Is learning obj C your first introduction to code at all or did you have any prior knowledge whatsoever?

No prior knowledge whatsoever. Learning Obj-C was my first introduction.

Thanks! I mean had you ever even used a terminal before that?

Lol I had no idea what a terminal was. Well, actually once at age 11 I bought a "hacking" book and managed to completely destroy my parents desktop. Everything was gone, and ubuntu was now the operating system.

Edit: destroying my parent's desktop was totally on accident.

I started coding apps 1.5 years ago, and am doing very well. However, I have reached the point where I'd prefer some more advanced content to follow rather than Big Nerd Ranch - Any materials you could share that are practical, yet significantly more advanced (tutorials)?

If I were you, and past that BNR point, I would just start coding projects and start looking to build a reputation or earn some additional income. Maybe look into freelance (some of those freelance mobile developers really rake it in) or try to build a reputation on GitHub. StackOverflow is the only resource material I've really needed following those first four books. There is just so much info on SO, if it goes down the internet is history.

Like you I had ideas and issues which I solved. Any tips on discovering cool libraries to work with? or Apis? Stack is so huge, how do you find out whats "hot"?

I love to browse GitHub. I typically do keyword searches, but they have trending pages as well.

How old are you? I'm a 30 year old civil engineer and I sometimes feel like my mind is not "plastic" enough to learn something new.

I am 23. If you ever feel like you can't do it, do what I do and head over to r/CrappyDesign. If some of those guys are professional programmers why can't I be?

What do you credit as the biggest resource that allowed you to be successful at programming, and how do you rate resources such as Code Academy?

Definitely StackOverflow. I haven't used Code Academy but have heard really good things about it. For me it was a few good books and a very large dose of SO.

How did you market yourself initially?

Strictly emails to marketing guys at college/pro sports teams. Literally, look the guy up, snoop for his email address, and send him a letter asking if he's interested. We finally started getting some traction as fans started sharing our videos, and this has made it more of a they-come-to-us instead of we-spam-them business model.

We finally started getting some traction as fans started sharing our videos,

That's exactly how I heard about it for Purdue. A buddy sent me a video of it when he was at a game.

Have you looked into getting it into an Olympic opening ceremony? That would be huge.

Awesome to come across someone who's heard of my work! Yes, I've thought (dreamed) about doing something with the Olympics but easier said than done. We have recently gotten into some other continents though, such as for Cricket in Australia and we plan to work with some Soccer teams in Europe as well.

What was your educational background before you started programming?

Economics degree from Northwestern. I have always been really introverted but had a love of learning, so I finished up high school and moved out at 16, and was probably very lucky that Northwestern chose to let me in at that age.

You started undergrad at 16 years old?

16 and a half

Hi congrats on the app and more importantly teaching yourself a valuable new skill. Have you received any flack from purist event attendees who don't believe audience members should be encouraged to be waving their phones around all night?

Actually, not yet! Have received a lot of spam though.

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Yes, I've always been pretty decent at math, but math has so far not played a major role in my programming. There are usually libraries that can take some of the heaviest math problems (like fourier transforms) off the table for you.

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It had a lot to do with math, but not necessarily in the way you'd think. I did some alternative schooling in high school, which ended up in me teaching myself Algebra II, trig, pre-cal, and calculous all from books I bought off eBay. I think having a history of teaching myself new skills made this round much easier than it would have been otherwise.

Did you enjoy working with Clemson? How much work did you do with them? I am an undergrad there in compsci

Clemson has been the nicest team to work with. After publishing their app, they sent me a signed thank you card and a bobble head. Class act all the way.

Can you share what languages youve studied to make the apps? Thanks!

Yes, at the time there were no reputable books on Swift, so I learned Objective-C for iOS and Java for Android. I also picked up some basic PHP for backend server-side stuff.

As someone who frequently has ideas for apps but has no idea how to get them off the ground is this more of a hobby or a job for you?

It's definitely a full-time effort. I'd say learning to code was a hobby, but programming has been a job.

Dude! This is incredible!!

What was the biggest struggle you faced that you never saw coming??

All the bureaucracy and contracts. Seriously, screw that I just want to code.

I've recently been interested in learning a programming language so that I can make my own version of a game I used to play quite a bit but have no knowledge base to go off of. Do you suggest starting with a book and just going from there?

Either a book or something like Code Academy, depending on your preferred style of learning.

Will you do my homework? :[

Yes

As a guy looking into programming, what resources did you find the most useful and what languages have the most scope in the future?

I'll copy this answer from elsewhere, let me know if you'd like any more details!

The exact four books I read are:

Learning Obj-C

Learning Java

iOS Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

Android Programming: The Big Nerd Ranch Guide

However, I would now recommend learning Swift instead of Obj-C. At the time when I was looking into iOS books, good books on Swift were few and far between.

Did you have any programmer friends to talk to/ask for help when you were first starting? Or was it just you, the books and the internet?

Me, the books, and the internet.

How good is the synchronization? I've always wanted to build something that could broadcast and sync music together across multiple devices, but I'm not sure where I'd start.

I had thought to make sure every device is sync'ed using a PTP server, but your method might be simpler.

This method is pretty simple. I think it should take less than a few hours to integrate. The synchronization is down to about 1/8 second.

Have you ever considering stoping because it was too long/difficult ?

Do you have any tips for people challenging themself to start a big learning project ?

For sure, it's been extremely difficult and challenging. What's kept me going is the fact that I work with some really cool people, and that makes it a pleasure to go to the office every day.

Now that your name is out there and your company is making moves, do you find yourself being head hunted or your company encountering a lot of un-welcome inquiries?

We do get a ton of spam now. It's not a huge problem, I can put my phone on silent. Well, actually the silent switch is broken, so it's rapidly becoming a big problem.

Congrats man, that's very awesome!

I am trying to teach myself coding and recently started a class on python. Would you recommend python or any other coding languages to beginners, or do you think Swift and Java are the way to go?

For backend server-side stuff I prefer PHP but I think a lot of people might disagree. But for mobile development on iOS and Android, Swift and Java essential.