"Learning Development By Doing" is there anything better?

#1

I recently had a long discussion with a group of developers some who were trained more formally in school programs and some who just joined the open source world out of pure curiosity and persistence. I wonder what @karl’s background is? Anyway I thought this would be an interesting topic for discussion, for example:

  • How many of you attended school for computer science or programming/ How many self taught?

  • What’s your preferred way of learning?

In my opinion the Crypto Space seems to have a bottleneck at the entry point, as there are very few programs or courses available due to the constantly shifting focus and rapid growth of the industry. People are uncertain where to get started or how to get involved with these new projects.

  • Do you see this a good thing or bad thing for mass adoption?

  • Is the exclusivity of crypto keeping people from getting involved?

Lastly I found these hackathons that I believe are doing a solid job, not just providing prize money, but creating educational resources for teams/individuals to learn while they build.

The Social Coding Blockternship, submit a project by August 7! more info here

#Cryptolife with Status in Prague, Oct 26–28 more info here

*There were more, but I’m only allowed 2 links as a new user :confused:

#2

When I studied my BBA, including computer and programming related, I was doing diploma work with my schoolfriend. There was a some device without manual, so my schoolfriend tried every possible way of configuring device, did get it working, and documented how to get it working.

When I was working at some company as Cloud Architect, and was moving servers from private datacenter to AWS, there was not much info how to get all that working, so we learned as we did go, wrote scripts, made autoscaling work, etc, and after getting that working started optimizing. I don’t work there anymore, but they did expand to other countries, visit those countries to help get started, do AWS and other cloud trainings, and lead the market in Nordic countries.

When I started at Open Source with TSC platform game https://secretchronicles.org , I did translate game and website to Finnish, did server admin stuff, just as a hobby, and learned a lot how Open Source works.

When I translated https://wekan.github.io Kanban software to Finnish, for 2 months there were no merging of pull requests by author of Wekan (was tired from trying to do rewrite), so community got worried. Someone suggested doing a fork, so we did it with name Wefork, and I volunteered as new maintainer of “Wefork”, started merging pull requests etc. Later we did get contact to original author of Wekan, and I merged Wefork back to Wekan. I added much more documentation to wiki, merged more pull requests, fixed bugs, coded features, etc. After one year as a hobby, someone asked to add bounties, and to add Commercial Support, that I now provide. So now I have customers all over the world for Wekan work. I could get more money if I was at some full time work, but now as a freelancer working from home or anywhere else, I have more freedom about choosing when I work, when I rest, and what client work I choose to take. So for me personally, I’m now more happy, living my dream.

The point is, if there is no existing training, documentation, code, etc, that’s that is your golden chance. You go first, try how to get it working, fix bugs, make it easy to use, create documentation, ports to multiple platform like Docker / Snap / Sandstorm / VirtualBox / Source etc, create training, and lead the way, and customers come to you.

#3

Wow, this is a really extensive reply. But I love your closing point. “when there is no existing training documentation, that is your golden chance” I think that’s a great mentality. Don’t wait for something to be created, don’t go after the easy target dive head first into learning something that no one else understands, not only that but create documentation to help others with it as well. I think you have the right kind of mentality to expand this world @xet7 :sunglasses:

#4

The space is so new, with so many new things happening everyday, that the best mentality one can have to enter, is the idea of non stop learning. For nearly 2 years, we have been creating a culture with people working on Swarm.city, where devs feel free to contribute, ask questions, all in the most open way possible. No coercion, no hierarchy. I strongly believe that that is the best way to learn things. Official trainings often feel like another way for organisations to make money, and limit it to the ones able to pay for it… while all the information is out there, to start creating, to start learning, to add value to any community or to your own life.

#5

I agree Yalor, that there is a clear bottle neck for people to start working in the area. And I agree with you Kiki that the concept of having a non stop learning trajectory is a good idea.

However I think there are people that want to get involved who can’t afford to just code on a project for a few months, time wise or other. I really like that Giveth is open to contributing financially to people who work on the project, and think that helps address some of the barriers to entry that would attract more people to work in the sphere.

I don’t see mass adoption happening until there is some sort of stream lined learning, or something about crypto becomes so essential that no one can live without it. But then that would inspire stream lined learning.

Recently I’ve heard discussions about crypto subtly being a part of people’s lives. A better and more inclusive UI side might sidestep some of the ramping up and adoption of these rather ambiguous technologies, and I’m interested to see which side arrives first!

#6

In some countries blockchain money is very important already

Yes, there is a bottleneck, in time and hardware resources. When I was setting up EthKan contract ui demo, it did take 4 hours for me to setup it on bare metal server (32 GB RAM) VirtualBox (using 16 GB RAM in VM). And before that, author of that contract code did spend a lot of time to understand how to get all that even working with code. To make getting started easier, it requires creating automated installation scripts, documentation, etc learning material, it takes a lot of dedicated time. That’s why supporting Social Coding projects like EthKan etc financially would help a lot.

#7

I completely agree, the UI is really what we’re missing at this point. It’s actually one of the thing we are in a constant search for within our Social Coding community. Iv’e seen a few really awesome projects coming into this hackathon but all with the same request “Any designers out there?” :face_with_monocle: and in response to “crypto subtly becoming part of peoples life” I think this is a really interesting concept. I would love to know where crypto/blockchain tech is creeping into everyday lives, perhaps making things easier, more efficient or safer for people and they don’t even know it!

#8

I agree @xet7 , that’s what we’re working towards within Social Coding: A streamlined process to get these hobby projects funded asap. We are actually now setting up a “Granting Campaign” within the Giveth DApp that provides grant writers, introduction and advising to early stage projects like EthKan. The truth is everyone is busy and spending tons of time setting things up and learning new processes, but if the community can benefit from your learning and your time investment then it’s worth the time and it’s of a greater value to all of us to make sure you have what you need to continue.

#9

Currently in EthKan there is

I’m in process of trying to get that VirtualBox image working again after moving it to another server that has more RAM etc.

From previous discussions with contracts demo author, I remember that some of the issues were that some of code runs only on browserside, etc. I’ll chat with him more about current status.

#10

First of all, thanks for opening the conversation @YalorMewn.

I’m a self-taught, and not only that, but I’ve fallen into crypto pretty early in my journey. In a weird way, I think that may make some of the bottlenecks easier for me. I started with Python, and was rather frustrated at the stage of progressing past basic skills. Trying to implement even basic program ideas would have me up against problems that I didn’t know how to articulate, which makes for a difficult experience when trying to get help. (“Read the manual, n00b!”, “Uh, which manual? Which part?”) In crypto, I sort of feel like everybody else is doing the same thing. (“How do I type cast to a string?”, “You don’t!”) If anything, the general enthusiasm of the community in accepting newcomers has been really amazing for me.

#11

@wschwab I can totally relate to your experience, it seems as if there are more people wading through unknown territory together thus making it easier to ask for help or possibly amplifying the amount of people asking the same questions. It is early, but it’s also the community spirit that I believe allows people to ask questions without appearing to be a n00b :slight_smile: because we’re all n00bs really.

Thanks for chiming in here. If you’re interested in connecting with more like minded developers, there is a good community here also!

#12

Slightly off-topic, but I believe this is a good thread to ask volunteers to help with https://github.com/cryptoeconomics-study/code :slight_smile: