My friend @cryptoctopus and I had breakfast last week and he asked me if I wanted to help him learn what he needs to know so he can write front-end applications. Pro-tip: If you want to get my attention, ask me to teach you something. I was the kid in primary school who hurried up finishing his workbook exercises so he could walk over to other student's desk and help them out.
So naturally I said yes. Obviously, learning how to code is a little more involved than half a page of grade 6 writing exercises. But @cryptoctopus is a friend dear to my heart, and I'm willing to go the extra mile to help out so here we are!
Full diclosure: I know (almost) nothing about the Steem blockchain.
I haven't even posted a single article on Steemit yet!
But I am not one to shy away from a challenge. Besides, when you work as a developer, you inevitably end up working in industries you don't know very much about, and end up having to learn how things work before you can start making worthwhile contributions.
At my last job, I was involved in programmatic ad exchanges, and before working there, I barely knew what an ad exchange even was. Now (I worked there for 2 and half years), I could (but definitely wouldn't) write my own programmatic buying and selling platform.
So here I am, faced with the challenge of not only helping a friend to learn how to code, but also write programs that interact with a platform I know nothing about.
One of the cool things about my job is that I get to learn a LOT. And I mean, a LOT. And I have my own ways of teaching myself things. Because that's usually how I do it, I teach myself things. And the ways I learn mostly involve spending a lot of time alone. It's a solitary process.
But now I'm thinking:
"Wait, this is a good opportunity! I usually don't take a step back and analyze my own learning process. But if I am to teach this thing that I taught myself, if I am to teach it efficiently, it would probably be easier if I thought a little deeper about this."
And why not share that with the community while I'm at it. Wouldn't it be fun for people to have both side of this learning journey?
A first little project
After writing the last 418 words, I started wondering how long I should make this post. After all, it's the first time I write on Steemit, and I do want to follow best practices.
Here's a little bit about how my brain works. The easiest way to have an answer to that question, the most efficient and fastest route, would be to JUST ASK @cryptoctopus. From all his experience on this platform, it's something I wouldn't be surprised he would have a lot to say about.
But no. That's not how I operate. I mean, sure, if all I'm trying to do is be efficient, fine, I'll take the fastest route. But here's what came up in MY mind.
"Okay, so is this article long enough, or should I keep writing? Well, how about I write a script that goes through every article ever posted on the Steem blockchain and gives me the median length in words of the most well performing posts?"
It's only after having THAT thought that I considered -just- asking. But we got ourselves a good opportunity here, folks. I think I just found the first project I could work on to start learning a bit more about this platform. For all I know, a script or even an app that does exactly that might already exist. Definitely let me know if you know of one!
However, my goal here won't be to make the perfect analytics app. It won't even be to make an app at atll. My goal here is to learn more about the platform by writing a very simple script. And projects like these are fantastic ways to learn more about something. This particular project will:
- Force we to ask questions in a way that's very pragmatic.
- Allow we to have a sense of direction and purpose.
- Be completed at some point. (which will allow me to look back and improve on my learning process)
In the next post, I'll be sharing how I approach this challenge.
I look forward to discovering more about Steem, more about what can be done and I'm excited to share what I learn along the way!
Welcome to Steem!
Looking forward to your step by step guide.
Thank you :)
Is there anything in particular you'd enjoy reading about?
Welcome, I feel that we have the same learning process, I'm a musician and my best way to learning new things is to stay alone and hear closely what I want to play. I'm interested in learning about programming, so, I'll follow you. King regards.
Thank you! I'm interested in learning about programming too :)
What kind of thing do you want to program?
I'm interested in back end programming
Welcome, and look forward to seeing posts from you detailing how good or bad a student @cryptoctopus is :)
And all the technical stuff as well of course!
😂
First session on friday! I'll let you know ;)
Great, i will follow you to see where this gets. I am a programmer myself, eager to learn how to get into Steem programming
Did you have time to make anything yet?
Time is the whole issue off course, i started an amazing course on 1st of June given by ivanontech (youtube). It goes from scratch to C++ and then ethereum, nem and eos smart contracts but Steem is not on the program.
I must say i have a bigger interest in EOS now, i tried some javascript examples to play with Steem but never got anywhere
Interesting project. I will follow your progress, maybe it'll also help me understand better the programming side of the Steem blockchain.
✅ @kareniel, I gave you an upvote on your first post! Please give me a follow and I will give you a follow in return!
Please also take a moment to read this post regarding bad behavior on Steemit.
Glad to have you on board. Ill clean up my upvote list so that I can more power behind my vote.
Welcome @kareniel! Great first post, congrats :)
There is a bot called @trufflepig, which uses machine learning to analyze and predict steem posts performance (it actually does much more). It's not exactly the same you are going for here, but I believe it might be on the same ballpark, so hopefully you might get some good ideas looking at it :)
Thank you! I'll check out the code. It's definitely gonna help in getting quick insights on how some of this stuff works. :)
Hey @kareniel! You've written a good first post and I'm sure there's plenty more to come. You seem like a supportive guy who's open to new ideas and willing to take risk where it seems reasonable. Plus, I get the impression that you're willing to help those that are willing to do good in order to help others.
After reading your post, I've come to the conclusion that you'd be a really good person to speak with about some ideas I have floating around. I'm excited for our conversation and seeing what will come of it. Write me back ASAP! Talk soon!
Is there some kind of direct messaging on Steem? If not not feel free to send me an email at [email protected]. Talk soon!
Do you have Telegram? My username is @Marhalish
Yup! Messaged you.