₦airaland Forum

davidsmith8900: Education is on the rise (Efiko)
I've seen alot of interesting Nigerian startups from this link - http://cchubnigeria.com/. It might be able to help.

Thank you.

KazukiIto: Hi,
This is probably my first post on this site! I'm currently learning how to program in C++(2 months so far), and I will be interested in meeting, both a Professional who can be my mentor, and fellow learners alike. Please if you are currently learning or about to learn C++, please drop your contacts here to enable me reach you, so that we can learn together. Thanks very much.

em@il: kukiito219@gmail.com / ito_kuki@ovi.com

Here are some books/tutorials to help you out in C++:

1. C++ For Dummies ~> http://www.cs.uah.edu/~rcoleman/Common/C_Reference/C++%20For%20DUMMIES.pdf

2. Beginning Programming With C++ For Dummies ~> http://www.4shared.com/office/nVwqXcW8/Beginning_Programming_with_C_F.html?locale=en

3. Microsoft Visual C++ Course ~> http://www.cse.chalmers.se/edu/year/2013/course/TDA361/VC++%20for%20dummies.pdf

4. Teach Yourself C++ In 21 Days ~> http://www.angelfire.com/art2/ebooks/teachyourselfcplusplusin21days.pdf

5. C++ Beginner's Guide ~> http://openstorage.gunadarma.ac.id/pub/journal/C++%20A%20Beginner's%20Guide%202nd%20Edition%20(2003).pdf

6. C++ GUI Programming ~> http://ptgmedia.pearsoncmg.com/images/0131240722/downloads/blanchette_book.pdf

7. C++ Language Tutorials ~> http://www.cplusplus.com/doc/tutorial/

8. C++ Programming Tutorials ~> http://www.cprogramming.com/tutorial/c++-tutorial.html

9. C++ Wikibooks Programming ~> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/C++_Programming

10. Learn C++ Tutorial ~> http://www.learncpp.com/

1. Job Employments/Search Like Jobberman?
2. Chats & Forums Like Nairaland?
3. Local Search Engines Like Vconnect?
4. News, Gossip Information Like Vanguard Nigeria?
5. E-Commerce/Online Shopping Like Konga?

What do you go online for? Basically what will sell? What will bring alot of traffic to one's user site? What do you think can make people's live better so that not only will the developers/programmers make money off of it, but also so that it will help people's lives in Nigeria/Africa?

Ajibel: Your num 1... Charging newbees before I teach them That's a No! for me...

There are many ways to charge people for teaching. You can give them 3 - 5 free lectures and then charge them for extra or at a low-cost rate.

1. Training/Teaching Newbie Programmers
2. Working As A Special Supervisor Consultant
3. Developing & Selling Software
4. Joint Venture With Marketers & Webmasters
5. Freelancing


Link ~> http://www.slideshare.net/passiveincomeformula/different-types-of-passive-income-streams-for-a-software-programmer
Link ~> http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/08/27/designer-passive-income-experiments/

Laryokeke: I think we need an African language - a language in pidgin. And it shouldn't exactly build another Facebook in its first version.

basic stuff like creating windows, putting pics on them and performing simple arithmetic are all it needs to debut.

it should seek to make programming as easy as


1. oya create window (non case sensitive and mistyping a word shouldn't crash it)

2. oya put 2 boxes, one button and two picture boxes ( note the 2 and two)

3. if person touch box1, collect wetin I'm put inside and make I'm name be baba.

4. show baba


the programmers should then work on tight algorithms to guess what's entered after a series of error correction and comparison of words with synonyms before the commands are executed


If we can get search results from Google using arbitrary words. I don't see how this is not equally possible

it should seek to entice Africans into programming by making it too too simple

Im down for this. I wouldn't mind making it an open source side project so that everyone can contribute.

Your marketing approach will depend on the pain you’re targeting.
“One thing that people don’t appreciate enough is that there’s different types of pain.” – Patrick McKenzie
Before you start building your product, ask yourself: how intense is the pain I am targeting? This is important, because the level of pain a customer is experiencing will determine:
How much they are willing to pay for the solution
How desperate they are to find a solution
To explain, I’m going to ask you to think about your dentist (stay with me).
Your dentist deals with different thresholds of pain:
Extreme pain: “ARGH! This toothache is killing me! I need a dentist right now!!!”
Moderate pain: “My gums have been bugging me lately. I should book an appointment sometime soon.”
Low pain: “I haven’t gone in for a checkup yet this year.”
(I also like the way Michael Buckbee categorizes pain intensity. He asks: “Does this pain need morphine, aspirin, or a vitamin?”)
Notice how the type of marketing your dentist employs corresponds with the intensity of the pain:
Extreme pain (morphine)
The customer is highly motivated to find a solution. They google “dentists nearby” and book an appointment with the first office that has availability.
In a situation like this, search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) would be the primary focus. This is “pull marketing”: the customer is desperate and in motion. They’re under pressure to find a solution quickly, which is why having good page rank (or an ad at the top of the screen) makes sense.
Businesses targeting extreme pain also have a pricing advantage. Often, the greater the pain, the more people are willing to pay (this is why Uber is able to use surge pricing).
What are some examples of products that solve extreme pain points?
Zapier: “If we don’t figure out this integration this week, we’re going to lose this deal.”
JSON-CSV: “My developer went home for the day, and I need to convert this JSON data to a CSV right now.”
Churnbuster: “How am I going to deal with all the customers with expiring credit cards?”
Moderate pain (aspirin)
Marketing moderate pain points employs both “push” and “pull” techniques.
For example, the dentist might place an ad in the paper that says:
“Experiencing gum discomfort? We can fix that”
This is push marketing: it proactively reminds the customer that there is a solution for their problem.
But some customers might be personally motivated to google “how to get rid of gum pain”, so the dentist could also write a series of blog posts on different treatment options (pull marketing).
how-to-get-rid-of-gum-pain.png
There is a lot of opportunity to solve moderate pain points, but it’s also where many entrepreneurs fail. Finding a pain that people will pay to get rid of isn’t easy.
“You want people who know they have the problem and who are actively looking for solutions, rather than a pain that’s bearable.” - Patrick McKenzie
What are some use-cases where products solve moderate pain points?
Baremetrics: “I really wish I didn’t have to update this Excel sheet manually with our SaaS numbers every month.”
Sprintly: “I wish I didn’t have to interrupt my developers every time I needed a status update on this project.”
Low pain (vitamin)
What do I mean by “low pain”? These are problems that require more of a vitamin, than an aspirin.
These solutions require a lot of push marketing. The company needs to both show the consumer that they have a problem, and then convince them to purchase their solution.
Your dentist’s office spends a considerable amount of its budget reminding you to come in for regular checkups. They’ll send you a postcard every 6 months, and follow-up with phone calls, just to get you to book that appointment.

Link ~> http://justinjackson.ca/the-pain-you-cant-stand/

Before YouTube, there was a million other video hosting sites. Why dont people know about them? There was Hulu, Google Videos, Justin.tv (which just closed this year) and others. The only reason YouTube is the number one, because not only did Google buy it, but Google has been making it free, popular and at the same time while making tons of money on it. Skype came out back in 2003, it didnt become popular and a billion dollar company until Microsoft bought it which was in the millenium age. Thats like 10 years.

uken73: Guy, I think you got some of those names mixed up. You are right about Jack Dorsey & Jerry Yang rounding Yahoo. Larry Ellison is founder of Oracle Corp. Even though Oracle has bought Sun Microsystems, the original vendor of Java, James Gosling is the Inventor of Java. And Android would be attributed to Google and Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. YouTube however was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim.

True but do u think that Java and YouTube would have been popular and would have been in the game this long (FOR FREE) if it wasnt for Larry Ellison and Google? If Yahoo wasn't making money with search engines, do u think that Google would have decided to make a search engine in the 1st place? Everything in life is a chain reaction to its predecessor. Think about Nairaland, Mr. Seun Osewa probably created Nairaland because he saw the idea somewhere on the internet. Now YM is doing the same because they saw Nairaland. Facebook saw MySpace. IrokoTV saw YouTube. Android saw iPhone which saw the Palm phone back in the days. Bill Gates saw Steve Jobs b4 he made a GUI. Steve Jobs (Steve Woz) saw Xerox and a computer back in a magazine created by someone that no one even remembers.

I would tell you that you should learn the following most valuable programming language in future in this order:

1. Java (Java has matured so much and Java has some of the cool stuff like generics, lambda expressions, Improved type inference)

2. Swift

3. C#

4. Javascript (and mainly because of Node and less because of web-app front ends)

I will tell you why ?

It’s hard to argue that any other language is more valuable for now, or for the future.

Link ~> http://www.improgrammer.net/valuable-programming-language-future/

My business is a motley collection of side projects. One of them: in my spare time, I run a high-end software marketing consultancy. It is modestly successful: I make my clients millions of dollars and charge mid five-figures a week.

Want the big secret to it? The big secret is that there is no big secret. Nobody ever shows up at your door and says "Welcome to the Illuminati. You can now charge $20,000 a week. Here's a list of clients." Assuming you have some valuable skill, like being able to program, turning it into a successful consultancy just requires excercising a bit of business accumen. Let's peek behind the curtain at some things which have worked for my business and those of my friends.

Link ~> https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/consulting_1

asalimpo: Going thru explanation of smart pointers in a recent c++ book(c++11) and it all sounded like GC to me.
If c++ uses gc wont tht mean tht modern c++ is going to b slower than its predecessors?

I doubt it.

asalimpo: You,sir, ar a doing a great deal helpg us stay infrmed about infrmation around d wrld. Keep up d good wrk.

I'm sure most coders here wud b readg stuff like this here only, cuz this is d only room they visit.

Keep up d good wrk. Publish more relevant info.

Although we don't know each other, you and I are complements on the same team. We balance each other out. I post new info and you comment with new knowledge. I've learnt alot from you from comments you have made on people's posts. Please keep up the good work as well. Have A Good Friday & A Great Weekend Ahead.

asalimpo: Linus isnt in d same class as those you mentioned. The artcle is a joke and an insult without the person who created d most popular open source application ever. He wrote d fastest version control software to host also - git?
Without Linus,they'd b no linux.
They'd b no android ,theyd b no ubuntu, debian or red hat.

Who is jack Dorsey?

Without Jack Dorsey, there will be no Twitter. Without Larry Ellison there will be no Java, no Android Apps. Without Jerry Yang, there will be no Yahoo, no Google, no YouTube.

asalimpo: Why is Linus Torvalds not on this List?
He's no enterprenuer but you can't/shudnt mention programming titans without him coming first.

You can always add him. What about Larry Ellison? Jack Dorsey? Jerry Yang?

Nigeria will work with MasterCard Inc. (MA) to deploy a new national identity card with a payment option to help broaden access to financial services in Africa’s largest economy, President Goodluck Jonathan said.

“Following successful local and international tests, the e-card system has now taken off,” Jonathan said today at a ceremony in the capital, Abuja.

Only about 30 percent of the about 170 million population of Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, have bank accounts, according to the Central Bank. The National Identity Smart Card, or NeID, will operate a prepaid payment system provided by MasterCard and will serve as a “platform with which we can achieve financial inclusion for the unbanked population,” Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, told reporters.

Link ~> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-28/nigeria-teams-up-with-mastercard-on-new-identity-and-pay-card.html

Visual Studio Online User Plans

Visual Studio Online, based on the capabilities of Team Foundation Server with additional cloud services, is the home for your project data in the cloud. Get up and running in minutes on our cloud infrastructure without having to install or configure a single server. Set up an environment that includes everything from hosted Git repos and project tracking tools, to continuous integration and an IDE, all packaged up in a monthly per-user plan. Connect to your project in the cloud using your favorite development tool, such as Visual Studio, Eclipse or Xcode.

Each Visual Studio Online account comes with five free Basic users and includes shared monthly resources for build and load testing. As your team expands or your needs grow, mix and match user plans and resources to give each user what they need.

Already an MSDN subscriber? Visual Studio with MSDN subscribers can join projects at no additional charge.

Link ~> http://www.visualstudio.com/products/visual-studio-online-user-plans-vs

Node.js is a cross platform runtime environment and a library to help run the applications that are written in JavaScript outside the browser. Node.js apps are designed to maximize the efficiency. Programmers and developers well know about Node.js and I guess I need not spare extra words about this javascript programming library.

Our article of the day indeed revolves around this but then those who are interested in learning it are aware of its basics and what exactly it is. Wish to master this javascript library? Here we have pinned down six really useful best free Node.js ebooks that improve your skills.

There are six ebooks that we found worth including in the list of best free Node.js ebooks. Each one of the ebook jotted down comprises of the useful content that will make you all learn lot many things about Node.js. Take a look at these and make your pick!

Link ~> http://theneodesign.com/best-free-node-js-ebooks/

Here is a tutorial/sample of what I've been using for my face recognition:

Face Detection In jQuery ~> http://davidwalsh.name/face-detection-jquery
Face Detection In Pure PHP (Without OpenCV) ~> http://svay.com/blog/face-detection-in-pure-php-without-opencv/

My object recognition is similar but when creating a classifier for each object (like an apple or a banana or a pencil), it takes a long time and becomes hard.

I like this alot but what programming language did u use? Is this more like a desktop (laptop) app than a web app? Ive been working on an image recognition program for auto tagging pictures/photos when taken but Ive been using JavaScript & PHP for face & object recognition within the images. It works but when creating classifiers, it takes a whole bunch of time. People recommend me using Java or C/C++ with OpenCV, but since my web hosting is shared, I can't install these libraries to my server.

Happy Wednesday & Good Evening To All,
Many times I've tried to post reasonable, helpful and educative links on a thread but Nairaland takes it as a spam and thus Im blocked for a day. Like yesterday, I wanted to post 200+ resources that are helpful to app designers, developers, engineers, programmers and scientists but I was blocked for a day. Please whoever is in charge should please work on this error. Thank You & Have A Great Day.

When developers discuss who the world’s top programmer is, these names tend to come up a lot.

Link ~> http://www.itworld.com/slideshow/158256/superclass-14-world-s-best-living-programmers-425412

Through facilitating hundreds of online marketing campaigns for my clients, I’ve been able to cut my teeth on some of the best web-based services available today.

Here’s a list of 10 of the most essential web-based tools we continue to use – on a weekly basis. These services can provide you with a multitude of solutions – from productivity, to payments/invoicing, to marketing and beyond.

Link ~> http://www.forbes.com/sites/seanrosensteel/2012/07/19/10-essential-web-based-tools-for-small-businesses/

Ive come up with a way (software) to access the internet (Free Internet With Only Text Browsing, because images/pictures will cost data charges) through Facebook Zero (https://0.facebook.com). There is also 'Twitter Zero' according to this ~> http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/29/twitters-emerging-market-strategy-includes-its-own-version-of-a-facebook-zero-like-service-called-twitter-access/ . Still, my only problem is that I dont know what most Nigerians (or all Africans in general) use the internet for, since there is no data online concerned with this demographic. Do many use it for:

A. Communication/Sharing/Socializing?
B. Looking for Jobs?
C. Getting News or Information around the world?
D. Gaming?
E. Education?
F. Entertaiment, Movies & Videos?
G. Buying a product or Consumerism?
H. Something else?

So Im interested if people can give me a feedback on what they use the internet for, as well as how people feel about accessing free internet (With Only Text Browsing) through https://0.facebook.com or https://0.twitter.com . Thank You, Good Morning Everybody, Happy Monday & Have A Great Successful Week Ahead.

dhtml18: Very funny, i cant stop laughing

Glad it made you laugh.

Scala is another JVM based programming language, which is quickly gaining popularity because of its interesting mix of object oriented and functional programming paradigm. Many companies has started using Scala for there strategic and mission critical development. One of the best known is Twitter, which is also one of the key factor in growing popularity of Scala programming language. If you are a Java, C++ or C# programmer, who is willing to learn Scala in your spare time, then you will be surprised to see how much helpful content is available for FREE on internet. By the way Java 8 is not far way, only couple of months to go and there are already some decent tutorials available online. If you are learning Java 8, you may like to see my list of resources on Java 8 as well. I personally prefer books to start with and that's why, when I recently started learning Scala, I did some research on Scala programming books, which are available for FREE download or online reading. I am surprised to see lots of good contents, including Scala for the Impatient from Cay Horstmann, which I already had. Other good FREE Scala books I found was Effective Scala, looks like inspired by Effective Java, from Marius Eriksen, Twitter Inc. This is not as exhaustive as Effective Java and I guess it will evolve into similar length, but still contains lots of good advice on Scala programming. One more Scala book which is available for free is Programming in Scala, First Edition by Martin Odersky, Lex Spoon, and Bill Venners, this is bit old, first published at December 10, 2008, but still a good book to have, given Martin, inventor of Scala is co-author. Another good tutorial cum book I found is Scala School, collection of lectures from Twitter to prepare experienced engineers to be productive Scala programmers. You can read this on-line. Best things about all these resources are that they are FREE, you don't need to spend single penny to get these tutorials, of-course if you like you can also purchase some more good books, I have mentioned in my earlier post about difference between Scala and Java programming language. Now let's see from where can you download these free Scala programming books and how good they are.



5 Free Good Books to Learn Scala Programming language

So here you go, my list of some of the best resources, tutorial and books to learn Scala programming language for free. Some of the books can be downloaded as PDF while others can be read online. If you know any other Scala book, which you think is a good resource to learn and its also available for FREE, you can share with us. Apart from these, you can also see tutorials, manuals, API reference from scala-lang.org and official Scala API documentation to learn more.

Scala for the Impatient
Free Scala Programming for Java Programmers
This is one of the few good books on Scala Programming language, written by Cay Horstmann, published by Addison-Wesley 2012. It's one of the best, compact introduction to Scala programming language for programmers who are already familiar with popular first class languages e.g. Java, C++ or C#. It contains small, chapter wise contents which are very easy to comprehend, a much needed requirement to understand a language like Scala, which initially looks cryptic to many Java developers. Once you gone through the book, you will most likely to use it as quick reference as well. To give you an idea about different levels of Scala programmers, level A1 is for Beginning application programmer, level A2 stands for Intermediate application programmer and level A3 is used for Expert application programmer. Similarly they have three levels for Scala library designer, where level L1 is for Junior library designer, level L2 is for Senior library designer and level L3 is used for Expert library designer. As part of level A1 contents you will learn following topics in Scala :

1) Java-like statements and expressions: standard operators, method calls, conditionals, loops, try/catch
2) Infix notation for method calls
3) class, object, def, val, var, import, package
4) Collections with map, filter, etc
5) Simple closures
6) for-expressions

Now the best part is that you can get the A1 level chapters of this Scala book for free at typesafe. All you need to do is to enter your first name, last name, email address and company name. You need to thank Martin Odersky, the inventor of Scala for that. He has also written forward for this book and so impressed with basic concept of the book that he asked cay, if the first section could be made available as a free download on the Typesafe website, something Horstmann graciously assented to. So what are you waiting for, you can download FREE pdf of Scala for the Impatient here.


Programming in Scala First Edition
This is one of the first books in Scala programming language, comprehensive step-by-step guide by Martin Odersky, Lex Spoon, and Bill Venners. One of the highlight of this books is that it is co-written by the language's designer, Martin Odersky. It covers Scala in great details and can be used as reference as well. Like any good book, Programming in Scala flows well with each chapter building on concepts and examples described in earlier ones. Fantastic thing is that first edition of this books available for FREE, by the way if you like you can also get second edition of this book from book stores. I rate this book very precious free resource for Java cum Scala programmers. You can read this book on internet here.



Scala School from Twitter
Scala school is started as a series of lectures at Twitter to prepare experienced Java, C and C# programmers to be productive Scala programmers. Scala is a relatively new language, but draws on many familiar concepts. Thus, these lectures assumed that programmers already familiar with the concepts and showed how to use them in Scala. This is actually an effective way of getting new programmers up to speed quickly. This online tutorial cum blog cum book is the written material that was used in those lectures, you can read them one by one in the order they are presented to get most out of them. They are short, full of examples and very easy to understand, but same time not trivial. You can check out this book on-line here


Effective Scala
This is another Scala programming books which is freely available in online, and another contribution from Twitter towards education programmers on Scala. Effective Scala is Twitter's "best practices" for Scala programming language, much like "Effective Java" is for Java programming language. This books is particularly useful for understanding idioms in Twitter's code. It's written and compiled by Marius Eriksen, Twitter Inc. marius@twitter.com (@marius) and covers Scala programming best practices on Formatting, Pattern matching, Types and Generics, Variance, Type aliases, Implicits, Collections, Performance, Java Collections, Concurrency, Control structures, Functional programming, Object oriented programming, Error handling, Handling exceptions, Garbage collection and Java compatibility. You can checkout Effective Scala here.


Scala Tutorials for Java Programmers
This is one of the best Scala tutorials for Java developers, directly from source scala-lang.org. This book gives a quick introduction to the Scala language and compiler. It is intended for people who already have some programming experience and curious to learn Scala to see what they can do with this new programming language. It also assumed basic knowledge of object-oriented programming, especially in Java. They start right from Hello World program, which is what most Java programmer like to see:

object HelloWorld {
def main(args: Array[String]) {
println("Hello, world!"
}
}

From here they went on to explain how Scala programs are structured and comparatively analysis of Java vs Scala. It is good as gold and absolutely free as well. You can download PDF version in book like format here.

Read more: http://javarevisited..com/2014/01/top-5-free-books-to-learn-scala-programming-PDF.html#ixzz3BNA3GpR7

Link ~> http://javarevisited..com/2014/01/top-5-free-books-to-learn-scala-programming-PDF.html

Have you ever noticed that computer programmers are very easy to startle? Walk up behind an accountant or a web designer sketching out banner ads, and nine times out of ten they’ll know you’re coming from a mile away. But computer programmers aren’t like that. You can stand right behind a programmer for ten minutes and quite often they will not even know you are there–especially when they are working on a difficult section. The larger the system, the deeper the trance.

I just read two fantastic essays describing programming as a dream-like state. I’d never thought of it this way before, but I’d have to say that’s the most dead-on accurate description I’ve ever heard.

Now, imagine you were in deep sleep, dreaming away about apples at 3am, and I came bashing into your room and said “Sorry, but we need you to dream about bananas now.” Do you think you could go straight back to sleep in a few seconds, dream about bananas for a bit, and then jump back to your original dream about apples? No, of course not, but this is what managers expect when they throw new tasks at us while we’re busy coding the first one. When this happens we’ve lost the hours we’ve spent on the first dream, we’re completely lost for half an hour, and then we eventually manage to get into the new dream.

–How Software Developers Work
This is very true. It takes a little while to “shift gears”. For small programs, it’s not so bad, because you can conceptualize the whole thing in a few minutes or seconds. For large systems it takes longer to get yourself back into the right frame of mind. You have to think about all the things you were thinking about when you put it down last, and this is often a lot harder than it sounds. There’s a small time penalty that’s paid every time a programmer sits down to work, but it’s only paid once per session. This is why a lot of programmers prefer to work in one long stretch instead of several short ones. In six 30 minute stretches, zero code will get written–zero good code, anyway–because you spend the entire time just getting started. In one three hour stretch, however, you might just compose a masterpiece.

I can sit down and start coding right away, but I don’t really “hit my groove” for an hour or two. Sometimes I try to accelerate that by leaving myself a thread the day before. I’ll intentionally not finish a block of code I was working on, but I’ll leave myself copious notes on how to write it so that when I sit down in the morning I can start right away on that block. In the morning I don’t really have to think about the block too much because the answer is right there, but by-and-by as I code it up the thoughts start rushing back to me. By the time I’ve finished writing the block, my head is where it needs to be and I can pick it up from there. Sometimes if the code is very complex I just keep thinking about the code until morning. Most programmers can and will do this, too. Some perhaps can’t hold onto the code for days or weeks, but virtually all can for a few minutes or even a couple of hours.

I know it sounds strange, but think of it this way: Have you ever had a dream that lingered? You know, when you have a nightmare or other intense dream, and it keeps coming back to you while your doing other things throughout the day? Your mind is still dreaming the dream even though you are awake, and you can feel it back there drifting around. Keeping code in your head feels very much the same way.

There’s a right and a wrong way to interrupt a programmer. The best answer is “don’t”. But if you must… If you think about programming like dreaming, you’ll realize that programmers remember more if you interrupt them gently than if you barrage them. If someone wakes you out of bed and starts shouting a long list of things at you to remember, you’ll almost certainly forget what you were dreaming. However, if someone shakes you gently and gives you a few seconds to open your eyes and look around before they start talking, it’s a lot easier to remember the dream for later. The same works for programmers. If you just walk into their office and start talking, one of two things will happen: they’ll completely forget what they were coding, or they won’t really be paying attention to you. However, if you quietly walk up to them and let them know you are there but say nothing until they are ready, the programmer can come to the end of the thought they are on. Once they’ve finished their thought, it will be easier for them to pick up next time and still pay attention to what you have to say.

Let’s take a maze for example. There is a task for the programmer to come up with an algorithm of finding the way out of the maze. When a programmer is working on this task he isn’t just a God’s Finger showing the directions to a little girl lost in a great maze. He isn’t that girl or the walls of a labyrinth either. He is actually all of that in a same time. In order to solve the task he must BECOME the labyrinth, the walls, the lost little girl and whatever else may just came along with it. It is not a figure of the speech – the programmer is literally SLEEPING and DREAMING that all in his mind.

–Don’t Wake Up the Programmer
My brother contends that it is this same phenomena that makes programmers so bad at estimates. The problem is, as he says, that the programmer already knows everything that needs to be written. When you have it all in your mind, it seems like it should be easy to write it all down. But it’s not. The physical act of writing the code takes a long time. But more importantly, your mind never thinks about all the “meaningless” details. It knows how to code them so well it doesn’t even need consider their existence anymore. Unfortunately, the computer still needs them. It can’t infer. All those loose ends, niggling details and corner cases end up eating a great deal of time… sometimes more than the rest of the program.

How does programming feel to you? What is your experience like?

Link ~> http://www.independentdeveloper.com/archive/2009/03/17/programming-is-like-a-dream

As a company; in the short span of a year, we’ve built over 30 digital products. Some products are still work in progress after 12 months, while others took just 2 hours to complete. At the same time, we share our expertise by advising companies or individuals on building digital products.

What we’ve begun to observe is there are only 2 types of products in the world. This is irregardless of whether they are digital or physical products. And knowing which type your product falls into, would help you immensely on planning the long term strategy of your product.

So what are the two type of products?

1. The first type are the Levers.
These products have a simple almost singular function of helping its users do the things that they are already doing faster or cheaper. In engineering terms, Levers amplifies the effort exerted to produce more work done.

For example:
Craigslist is a faster & cheaper version of public adboards; An e-commerce site is a faster & cheaper version of a brick and mortar store; Google search is a faster way to look for information as opposed to information counters or scouring books.

Levers are great products to build because it has the highest potential of its purpose understood easily, used and shared with other users. Little marketing or educating is required because like a lever, a user understand the uses for the tool in a single look. The best part; levers require very little time or effort to build. The beauty of the Lever products is in its simplicity.

How do you build a Lever product and what’s the best action after?
By observation & reflection.
It does not matter if the product is a pain point or a vitamin solution. All a lever product needs to do is to complete the process of what is already occurring in real life in less steps, faster and in a cheaper way. Once you’ve found that solution; stop. Do not add any more features to your lever product. Then observe where & how your users use your product in order to push it to the right people. After all, a fashion designer wouldn’t find much use for a lever.

2. The second type are the Portals.
These products are the ones that pushes mankind into the realm of unknown. Depending on the time of their release, you could suffer a total rejection of the product or merely confused looks.

For example:
Witchcraft, Magic, Tesla’s unlimited power generator and of course, qiscus.

Portals are painful products to build because the product exists only on a vision of a more idealistic future. It may look totally different or almost similar to the currently existing solutions but what is common in all portal products is that they are trying to change how people perceive or go about their daily lives in fundamental ways. After building a portal product, the inventor/founder must spend a majority of his effort on educating & shepherding users to be curious, to start trying the portal product then see results on why this is a better way. Also, when building a portal product, be prepared to bleed for a very long period of time because you are trying to change human habits & behaviour.
Now the cool thing about a portal product is once mankind is comfortable and familiar with the product, they can never imagine what life would be life before the product existed. In fact, they would often wonder why this product never existed before.

How do you build a Portal product and what’s the best action after?
With vision & persistence.
In order to build a portal product, you need to have a vision of the most idealistic future. After, you need to ask fundamental questions constantly on why humans behave they way they do. More importantly, you need to emphatise and understand the underlying reasons of their behaviour. It is not enough to understand their answers but you’ll need to understand why they give their answers as such and the real answer that they may be hiding from you.

When building solutions, take note of not what the users think they need, but rely on the fundamental understanding of human behaviour and your ideal vision. You’re building the future not a Lever.

Upon building the product, you must trust your gut feeling on whether to add or remove features. There is no right or wrong answer because there’s no one ahead of you in your vision. There are references and lessons to be learnt from others but take that with a pinch of salt. You must observe your users, their fears, their hopes and dreams. Then you must be persistence and determined to keep on calling them to this ideal future while taking rejections in your stride. In fact, keep coming back to those who have rejected you with improvements because one day, they will be your strongest supporters.

Good luck!
That being said, this is just the cumulation of our experiences, observation & analysis. It may not have the necessary depth to encompass all but it has been most useful for us to advise other companies or individuals on whether the product is a good fit for the builder.

Many times, the advise is whether the product has found its product market fit(users). But the more important question is are you the right person to build that product. Because if you are, no matter how difficult it gets, you’ll feel happy building the product because it fits you and it’s something that you will always like to work on.

So figure out your type of product and figure if you’re the right person to build it. Else, pivot; not from scratch but from pulling out the features and recombining them to make a newer and better products. =D

Link ~> https://medium.com/@amin_wi/theres-only-2-types-of-products-in-the-world-fe27a9136251