₦airaland Forum

Yes, I just received a mail to attend the boot camp on Monday.

berryBee:
Booked my interview for Wednesday 2pm..who else fixed theirs on wednesday?

I also booked for Wednesday, 2:15pm

GodMode:
Where did u copy this rubbish from

The greatest programmers love to code that's why they don't involve themselves in management.. money is not an issue to them..

Most of them may not be billionaires but they are millionaires or "thousanaires" who live simple and comfortable lifestyles...

Nigerians! Read and reflect before you comment. I didn't say that great programmers can't build a great company, i said that building a company involves more than expertise.

9japipper:
Steve certainly wasn't a programmer. But then you failed to also consider that he was obviously a techy person. He never started out with building a software company. Steve started with building a Personal Computer! his first real product was the apple 2 cus He knew how transistors work, he knew how to put small electronic components together and make them work. Most of all he had a great product design skill, He was an artist and could draw his imaginations and have them made into a product.

Now lets go over to people that built software products from scratch, they were definitely great programmers. Paul Graham of Ycombinator, Bill gates, Zucks, Airbnb guys, larry page not to mention a few!
Non programmers definitely make good founders too but its a lot better when you have both great business skill and a programming skill. Am not a programmer. I am first a business man then a UI/UX developer with little skill in programming.

Cheers

Yes it is very important to possess the skills to start a tech company, the point I'm just emphasising is that, having those skills alone is not enough. The key quality of great company founders is that they were relentlessly resourceful. Building a great company is really hard. Something ones expertise alone cannot do.

asalimpo:
I agree with you on some points.
Airbnb founders not programmers? I doubt.
But being a programmer doesnt mean you cant strt a successful business.
Konga and jumia, simply won by monopoly. They shudnt b mentioned on a global rankg of tech companies. Y?
The nigerian factor ,for one.
How many strtups does the country produce per time period,e.g a year, and at what rate?
I.T is dead here, so any1 with deep pockets and a tested idea can hit here and grab market space.
Notice all nigerian strtups of any measure of success got their idea and model tested for them by others. Eliminating the acceptance risk for them. E.g dealdey= groupon. (groupon tried d idea,it worked . Deal dey copied . Low risk to deal dey)
konga/jumia = amazon.
Nairaland = forums . (with a mix of fb,twitter etc)

soon an airbnb clone will arrive.

The issue still is,the nigerian mindset is still so anti risk.
That's y lilttle innovation has surfaced here.
Even in areas like fastfood , biggs premiered the concept here bf local copycats copied . Now, we hav, tantalizers, drumstix, chicken republic etc.

We just dont like thinkg outta d box or want to risk repeated failure.

Guy you didn't understand me. I'm not implying that programmers can't start great companies. I was implying that most programmers make the mistake of believing that their coding skills will see them through in building a great company. This my friend, is not true. Building a great company needs more than coding skills. That's why a non programmer can start a great company. Steve jobs for example

The simple advice I will give you is... Mold one. The same stuff we tell ladies when they are searching for a the perfect man. Jokes apart, I want you to consider these before you jump into a startup with any dick and harry.

1)How will you be able to convince a very good programmer to leave his/her high paying job to work with you on a startup that one is not sure is going to be successful. Anybody that have the skill you request will obviously be hot cake for big companies.

2)The irony of life is that people don't always believe really good ideas. According to peter thiel, it is really hard to convince people about a very good idea. So if you are able to convince a stranger(apart from your friends or relations) about your idea, it is crap.

3)Starting a company with someone is like going into a marriage with the startup as the baby. As we all know, marrying the wrong person is a disaster. This is the same with a startup. Don't EVER start a company with a stranger. It is one of the most stupid mistake one can make, because it is quite obvious. It is well known that the best people you can start a company with is people you know and have worked with before. This is very important, because the startup environment is a very stressful place to work in. It is there you begin to see the real person you took as a cofounder. The person may decide to bail on you or even backstab you. This are qualities you should know before you start a company with someone. it is always advised to start a company with someone you know and have worked with before. Don't ever start a company with someone because of his/her skills, start a company with someone you know you can work with.

4)Starting a company is more about determination than skills. That's why most of the greatest programmers are not billionaires. According to paul graham, startup founders are always relentlessly resourceful. Check companies like pinterest,airbnb,konga e.t.c their founders had little or no programming skills. You have to understand that building the product is just part of the circle of starting a company. The most important stuff is building something that people love. This is something no coding skill can ever give you, you will only have an advantage over non coders.

To wrap it all up, I will advice you read these essays by paul graham.
www.paulgraham.com/articles.html. It is very wonderful, it will really enlighten you on startups. Also read blake masters notes on peter thiels lectures.

Flattening

Use the reduce method in combination with the concat method to “flatten”
an array of arrays into a single array that has all the elements of the input
arrays

A vector type
Write a constructor Vector that represents a vector in two-dimensional
space. It takes x and y parameters (numbers), which it should save to
properties of the same name.
Give the Vector prototype two methods, plus and minus, that take another
vector as a parameter and return a new vector that has the sum
or difference of the two vectors’ (the one in this and the parameter) x
and y values.
Add a getter property length to the prototype that computes the length
of the vector—that is, the distance of the point (x, y) from the origin
(0, 0)

Saying everyone should learn programming is like saying every one should become a medical doctor. Both occupations are very intellectually and financially rewarding. Programming should be something you venture into because you love it, not because there are a lot of opportunity in it. This is the same kind of mentality that pushed people in the past into occupations like Medicine, Engineering and so. In the past, if you were not doing any of this professions, you have not arrived.

i use laravel for Php, django for Python, chrome dev tools for javascript/famo.us. I also use sublime text as my editor.