This founder learned basic programming in 3 months to understand his programmer

Photo credit: Sergey Galyonkin.

I started running a mobile chat app service after quitting my job at a multinational company. But before we get into the details, here’s a little background:

I majored in business at a university and my work background was all about business planning in a corporate strategy department. So, I’m sure you can imagine how difficult it was to be a web/mobile product manager who’s working with a programmer in my startup.

This is why I wanted to share how I studied programming so I could work with and correctly communicate my thoughts to programmers.

I want to emphasize that this method can only work for people who simply want to learn what the programming world is like and the process of building web/mobile products. These guidelines will not work for people who want to become real developers.

Step 1: Get a taste of web programming via YouTube (1 week)

The biggest problem with self-studying is that people always give up in the beginning because they feel overwhelmed. Studying web programming is especially difficult for someone who doesn’t have a programming background. You may often here programmers say, “All you need to do is put this code in and run the batch script.” This may be simple to programmers but it is gibberish to non-programmers.

To avoid giving up in the beginning, I strongly recommend first getting a glimpse of the web programming world by watching a free YouTube course. Do not try to install or build anything the course mentions. Just watch the entire course in a week. The purpose of just watching is to see the whole programming process and understand the big picture.

I recommend the free courses by LearnCode.academy. They give an overview of the web programming process, basic programming languages, and structures of web development. Again, do not try anything that the course says, just watch. You can watch the courses before beginning a programming bootcamp. You can even snack on popcorn and beer to make watching more enjoyable.

Step 2: Complete Ruby on Rails Bootcamp on Udemy (8 weeks)

Nowadays, there are so many online academies such as Udemy, Udacity, Khan, Coursera, and Lynda. I think all these websites provide great programs, and they have their own value propositions. Because our goal is to learn programming to work with programmers (and not to become programmers), I recommend Udemy.

Udemy is perfect for someone who wants to learn something in a short period of time, while Udacity is for someone who wants in-depth curriculum.

After watching the YouTube courses from Step 1, you will see that the programming world consists of two major parts: the server side and the client side (front-end) programming. You will also learn about the programming languages (Ruby, Python, PHP, etc.) and frameworks (Ruby on Rails, Django, CodeIgniter, etc.). You don’t need to fully understand the concepts. Just knowing the difference between the programming languages and the frameworks is enough.

Briefly, programming languages are linguistic syntax and the grammar used for computers. Frameworks are a group of classes and libraries designed to run a specific operation system. It’s easier if you understand the difference in the following way:

If you want to speak with Koreans, you will need to know how to speak their language. In the same way, if you want to communicate with your users via web pages, you need web-based languages to deliver your message. Moreover, it will be easier and faster to communicate with Koreans if you know quite a few Korean phrases. Likewise, you can make your website more accessible if you use a framework because there are a variety of pre-made sets of syntax and libraries you can use.

You may also need to understand the level of computer languages. There are high-level and low-level languages, but don’t be fooled by the name. High-level is not considered better than low-level. The levels are simply different. If the computer language syntax is more similar with the level of human language, it’s referred to as high-level. On the other hand, it’s called low-level if the language is used more on a hardware level such as CPU or OS. This is also called as machine code or assembly language.

You don’t need to know anything about low-level language at this moment. You just need to know what language is necessary to run each level of the process. When you need to show some web pages to users you will need HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. When you want to exchange some information between your server and users of your website, you may need to choose Ruby, Python, PHP, Java, or C.

To sum up, you need to study HTML, CSS, and parts of JavaScript, plus at least one of the server-side languages like Ruby, Python, and PHP. If you choose Ruby as a base language, you need to learn Ruby on Rails as the language framework, Django for Python, or CodeIgniter for PHP.

I recommend that beginners choose Ruby on Rails for the following three reasons:

1. Rails has strict conventions, so it reduces the possibility of mistakes because it won’t show any result if you make a small spelling or syntax error.
2. Rails has a very strong and convenient third-party library called Ruby Gem. Most frameworks have a variety of third-party libraries but Ruby Gem makes it easier for beginners to integrate the code organization in their own website with less errors.
3. You don’t need to fully understand the difficult website deployment processes because you can simply use Heroku, a cloud-based server application platform. Heroku is also available with other languages, but usually requires just a few lines of codes to deploy your website if it is used with Rails.

So, I recommend that you choose a Ruby on Rails bootcamp course on Udemy that includes the following:

1. A course that mentions bootcamp in the title (because it usually means that the course will include every side, from front to server)
2. A course using Ruby on Rails  (check the course syllabus to see if it will use Ruby on Rails as a main framework)
3. A course with over 4.5 rating by over 200 students

I chose The Complete Web Developer Bootcamp course when I studied this subject two years ago. You may need to find a more recent course than mine (check the curriculum of my course to choose your own more updated course). It usually takes over two months to complete a course like this.

Step 3: Learn Bootstrap (1 week)

Bootstrap is a framework for HTML and CSS to run web pages. Honestly, it’s difficult for a beginner to create a single web page correctly with raw coding for HTML and CSS. You will struggle even just trying to locate the button at the center of the line. Bootstrap makes it easier to overcome these difficulties and deal with other challenging parts of web coding such as box model, floating, or alignment of CSS. It even makes your code fully mobile-responsive with just a few lines of code.

The course you choose on Udemy may include how to use Bootstrap, but the instructor may quickly look through it or show only small parts of it, so I recommend studying Bootstrap more deeply alongside your chosen Udemy course. For extra tips, you can check out Bootstrap’s official website and implement the ideas on your own website.

Step 4: Download fully coded Bootstrap website and create your own portfolio website (3 weeks)

If you follow the first three steps, you will have some skills and knowledge to help you talk with developers in terms of web programming. But now, you may want to go a step further and try to make your own website, programmed and deployed by your own hand. Unfortunately, this is not as simple as you may think.

Remember that our purpose here for learning programming is to experience the holistic process of front-end programming to become a better web/mobile product manager, not to become a front-end programmer. So, here is a shortcut to help you experience this within a month.

1. Go to the Start Bootstrap website .  This is a website where you can download fully coded bootstrap templates.
2. Download one of the sources—one-page, simple, grid-style.
3. Try to learn how you can design a simple set of architectures of HTML, CSS, and js files. Look closely at each file’s relationship and which file functions for which side of the website.
4. Try to change the contents of the website to your own portfolio web page by editing index.html. You can see which in the codes will change for each specific part of the website.
5. Try to change the CSS files into your own designs. This will be a little bit tricky but it’s worth a try.
6. Try to learn how these websites use Font Awesome or Glyphicons to generate each icon or button on the website.

I made my own portfolio website by combining three bootstrap templates that I downloaded via Start Bootstrap. It took me just two weeks to make and deploy via Heroku, and it still functions well.

I made my own portfolio website by using 3 templates from the Start Bootstrap website.

It may take about three to four months for you to arrive at this stage, but it’s really worth the time and effort.

This method will open your eyes to how internet products are made and operated. It will change your way of thinking and the way you design a product because you will be able to see the underlying tech stacks or functions.

Remember again that this method is not about becoming a programmer. It’s just a shortcut to help you understand the programming world.

This article was first published on Medium.