How To Combine Learning And Developing part 1

I think there are two ways of combining these two things, today I will tell you about one of them Learning While Developing.

The Example of Learning While Developing

Consider you have the idea you passionate about, like a web or mobile app that solves all peoples problems at once. So you want to implement it as fast as possible, but you don't have much knowledge about the app development. So you decide to start developing and just learn new things while doing your app.

So basically, it's about this approach, you have something you really serious about and you
don't have much knowledge about how to do it.

Is it a good approach?

First of all, let's find out the reasons to do things that way

1. You're really passionate about your idea.
2. You are afraid that somebody can "steal" your idea and implement it while you still learning.
3. You want to do it as fast as possible. 
4. You think it'll be a great success.

And now let's find out is it a good approach.

I'm absolutely sure that it's not. I had an experience of doing things that way and I didn't finish any of projects that started with this in mind. The reason, I think, that a big idea requires big efforts to develop. And when you know nothing about how to develop your idea into a product it requires even more efforts. 

Don't be delusional

Last 2 reasons to do thigs that way are delusions because of the first reason. When you're passionate you can't be pragmatic and evaluate your possibilities.

You'll can't develop your idea fast if you don't even know how. You'll spend most time Googling things and always reworking your old code because you learned how to make it more effective. You'll end up transferring your project from one framework to another because you "need" that "cool feature". And then your passion will end and you just move to another great idea. But when you already have some experience in the field you can decide what tools you should use to meet your goal.

But why great success is a delusion if there's such a great idea? Because for users, quality is more important than an idea. Don't forget they don't know that your app can solve their problems until they actually use it on a regular basis so the only way to estimate your app is quality but you can't provide it yet.

What if somebody will develop a similar app? Actually, I think it's not a bad thing. I even think when you're starting out it's a good thing. Because you have an example of how your app should work and you can focus on how to implement it and improve it instead of thinking about every small detail in your own app. Also, someone who has the same idea and has skills to implement it will do it faster and better than you anyway. Picasso had a saying he said "Good artist copy, great artist steal". (by the way, I stole this phrase from Steve Jobs)

I will tell more about similar apps in one of my future posts.

The right way to combine learning and developing

So there is the other way to do that, and I will tell you about next week in the second part of this post so stay tuned.

See you in the next one, peace! 

How I made my first Android (also Java) app

Every moment when you do something for the first time is truly unforgettable. So my first Android app was not an exception and this blog post will not be the one.

The event

It was about half a year ago on VL Hackathon #4, a local hackathon provided by great people, mostly volunteers. Hackathon lasted for 48 hours and for this time these people treated us as well as they could.

Of course, I was not alone, there were two teammates Vasiliy Nikiforov and Peter Nazarov who are also in my study group. If you think that we already knew what to do and how to act on hackathons you're totally wrong, that was our first one.

Actually, we didn't even know how to use Android Studio!

But we picked the idea, not the best one (actually, I think one of the worst ideas we could pick :) ) , but the easy one, that  idea which we could implement within 48 hours without any knowledge about Android Development and with only one member of our team who knew Java at some decent level, it was Peter.

The idea

Our idea was an app about quotes, primarily motivational, so you can motivate yourself throughout the day (yes, I know, it's embarrassing for me to tell it every time). You can upvote/downvote existing quotes and even add your own! Not the best, but appropriate for our level.

The process

These 48 hours are unforgettable for me. By the way, I came on the hackathon with the flu so the pills were my breakfast, lunch and dinner, but I was so excited so I just didn't notice my illness. It was 48 hours of googling, reading and coding (and about 4 hours sleeping), it was incredible 48 hours.

Me and Vasiliy

These 4 hours of sleep

The result

But not everything was like in a fairy tale.

Most of the features of our app were implemented just about 2 hours before the end and debugged in the moment before the presentation. Here what it looked like at presentation:

You can add your own quote!

Never do screenshots like this. Use demo mode!

Favorited quote.

It was really embarrassing to present our because it was really bad implemented and we knew it but we did it! We just did the best we can in our situation and we knew that the second time will be better, and third time even better than the second.

We didn't pursue result, but we did pursue the process. I think that to achieve some results you should go through the process and if you do it again and again, results will be better and better.

The people

Actually, the coolest thing about this event that I meet a bunch of great people with whom I stay connected even now. Not only tech guys, there was the cosplay band who invited me to do the cosplay photo set about Scott Pilgrim and I was the Scott Pilgrim!

Perfect match!

So this kind of events can provide you with the connections you don't even think about. Why are you still reading this? Go find any and participate!

Summary

So what I want to say with this post is don't be afraid of failure, just do what you want to do and if it doesn't work as you want don't worry too much, You are just starting out it is not the end of the world (this is, actually, the reason why I'm writing this post right now). So just go and do something you was afraid to do, and show it to people!

See you in the next one, peace.

P.S if you want to see the code check out my GitHub.

Hello World!

This in my first blog post. Hope You'll like it.