boogdan

I have a friend that wants to learn iOS programming in Swift and he asked for my help. He doesn't have any basic knowledge event about the fundamentals of programming so I really don't know how to create a roadmap for him. He want's to do it just for the fun of it, not for pursuing a job as a programmer. Just as a hobby. He's not young, he has a job so he can't spend more than one hour each day for this new hobby therefore I must come up with a long term track.

Since he doesn't even know the basic stuff, how to I tackle this? If I'm jumping right into teaching him about variables, functions, classes, etc then I'm afraid that he'll get scared, overwhelmed and frustrated because he, like any other absolute beginner, lacks the "programming vision" (something that I like to call the "I know kung fu" Matrix moment).

So I suppose my plan must start with teaching him the why's and then the how's of programming, right? I must first give him some lecture about general programming knowledge?

I remember when I was a kid, even though I knew the syntax perfectly, I couldn't understand why do I need a function or why do I need to use a for-loop or when do I need to use X instead of Y, because the teacher didn't bothered to explain me these concepts. So that's what I'm afraid it'll happen to my buddy if I don't come up with a more down to earth way of teaching.

That being said, how do I do it? What books can I recommend him? How do I schedule his learning path? Any help is welcomed and appreciated.

Hey,

I want to help others to achieve their goals. It can be a startup, a lonely developer, a young kid who just started playing around with various technologies..it doesn't matter. The only condition is that these goals must be something that add real value to our lives (so not fart apps).

Because I'm not a rich person and I cannot jump in and invest, I'm looking for other ways to help. For example I was thinking on building a hosting server based on multiple raspberry pi platforms or offering a room in my house for free. Or buying and renting books, online courses or even computers.

I'm not interesting in any benefits, I just love science and technology and I want to help the community.

So dear HN, do you have any ideas? What would you do? Or what would you need?

Hi,

I'm planning on launching a dev startup and I'm in serious doubts what TLD to use.

I have two: - one with .io extension - one with .ro extension (I'm from Romania)

.io advantages: - geeky - internationally known amongst dev people

.ro advantages: - great for national identity

Any advices?

I'm going on a holiday and I'll have a lot of time dedicated to reading so I want to take a book related to programming. Since I won't carry my computer with me but only my Kindle, I'm looking for a book that doesn't require code practice.

I just started to play with Swift for a few months as a hobby so I'm either interested interested in something related or into something generic (such as a book about algorithms or data structures).

I would love to read a book that helps novices to understand concepts, problems, etc...it doesn't matter as long as it improves your thinking.

Thanks!