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Teach Yourself to Build Web Apps
BaseRails is a learning platform founded by two self-taught coders, Alex Yang and Susie Ye, aimed at helping entrepreneurs quickly prototype web apps without the traditional complexities of coding. They share five key lessons drawn from their experiences, emphasizing project-based learning, recognizing patterns, and building accountability. Through their platform, students can build real projects while accessing video content and troubleshooting support, making the learning process more practical and effective.
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Teach Yourself to Build Web Apps
- 1. BaseRails Teach Yourself toBuild Web Apps And learn to hack!
- 2. BaseRails Alex Yang Instructor @BaseRails •Harvard, AB in Applied Math • Boston Consulting Group • Left to start a food delivery company • Freelancer for Codecademy Susie Ye Producer @BaseRails • Rutgers University, PharmD. • Founded used-books ecommerce company • Launched Spriggle, social selling for STEM-inspired toys Who We Are
- 3. BaseRails We’re two peoplewho taught ourselves to code in 6 months… Our Story
- 4. BaseRails It was painful. Wewasted a huge amount of time. We googled a lot of bizarre errors, some of which took weeks to figure out.
- 5. BaseRails Here’s what wewould have told ourselves 1 year ago… Disclaimer: This is just our approach from our own experiences. Hate it? Love it? Either way, let us know
- 6. BaseRails Let’s say youhave an idea for the next billion dollar startup…
- 7. BaseRails You want toget something on the web as quickly as possible
- 8. BaseRails There are somany website builders and templates out there to build blogs, landing pages, and ecommerce stores
- 9. BaseRails But they allcome with limitations
- 10. BaseRails Limitation #1: Difficultto customize
- 11. BaseRails Limitation #2: Doesn’tinclude more in-depth features What if I want to do more than collect emails?
- 12. BaseRails Limitation #3: Doesn’tserve your purpose But what if I want to build a marketplace?
- 13. BaseRails Limitation #4: Isoften buggy and slow
- 14. BaseRails Your next stepis probably to find someone to build it for you….
- 15. BaseRails But unless youwant to pay $XX,XXX and be handcuffed to overseas developers every time you want to customize something, it’s not really a practical solution for most entrepreneurs.
- 16. BaseRails YOU JUST REALLYWANT YOUR MVP TO BE BUILT ALREADY! I mean, how hard can it be?
- 17. BaseRails YOU JUST REALLYWANT YOUR MVP TO BE BUILT ALREADY! I mean, how hard can it be? So you decide to do it yourself.
- 18. BaseRails Time to learnto code!
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- 20. BaseRails 2. JavaScript 1. HTML/CSS 3.Python/Ruby/PHP 5. Build your MVP 4. Django/Rails
- 21. BaseRails 2. JavaScript 1. HTML/CSS 3.Python/Ruby/PHP 5. Build your MVP 4. Django/Rails Not Really…
- 22. BaseRails Learning specific languages fromthe ground up is NOT the best way to learn to prototype your web app
- 23. BaseRails Unless you’re tryingto become a web developer as a profession, learning computer theory and syntax is not the most efficient use of your time.
- 24. BaseRails Most people endup with nothing to show for their efforts
- 25. BaseRails That’s because learning tobuild web apps is different from learning to code
- 26. BaseRails So why arewe still learning it the same way?
- 27. BaseRails 5 Lessons WeLearned on Teaching Yourself to Prototype Web Apps
- 28. BaseRails Lesson #1: Start withan idea, aka, work on projects
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- 30. BaseRails You don’t haveto feel ready to get started
- 31. BaseRails Sketch out whatyou have in mind before you start learning to code. That way, you can visualize the functionalities you need to build.
- 32. BaseRails Our first projectwas a property management marketplace called RoomTaker
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- 34. BaseRails We knew nothingabout HTML, CSS, Javascript, or Ruby on Rails.
- 35. BaseRails We just knewwe wanted a popup form to collect names and emails when people clicked a button.
- 36. BaseRails If you don’tstart with an idea in mind, it’s easy to follow tutorials and end up with something irrelevant
- 37. BaseRails We stayed trueto our initial vision. It took us 4 weeks to get it to work but we had our first MVP.
- 38. BaseRails Lesson #2: Don’t memorizesyntax, learn to recognize patterns
- 39.
- 40. BaseRails This Ruby codemay seem incomprehensible to you
- 41. BaseRails But if someonetold you it was a form creator, and you can change some text to customize the fields, suddenly it’s not that scary.
- 42. BaseRails The same aswith math, it’s all about filling in the blanks.
- 43. BaseRails Lesson #3: Type outeverything, don’t copy and paste
- 44. BaseRails We know wejust said to recognize patterns and fill in the blank.
- 45. BaseRails We know wejust said to recognize patterns and fill in the blank. But that doesn’t mean you should just copy and paste your code from others!
- 46. BaseRails Typing out allthe code lets you get the hang of a programming language’s syntax.
- 47. BaseRails You’re not forcingyourself to memorize anything, but over time, you’ll be surprised at how much code you can write just from muscle memory.
- 48.
- 49. BaseRails Let’s be honest… thefirst time you see or write code, you probably won’t understand it all.
- 50. BaseRails Let’s be honest… thefirst time you see or write code, you probably won’t understand it all. And that’s okay!
- 51. BaseRails You don’t needto understand 100% of what you’re doing the first time around
- 52. BaseRails You don’t needto understand 100% of what you’re doing the first time around (you’ll probably only understand 20%)
- 53. BaseRails Trying to mastereverything at once will slow you down, make you frustrated, and cause you to quit
- 54. BaseRails Repetition is key.Each time you work on a project, you’ll start to retain more and more information.
- 55. BaseRails Lesson #5: Hold yourselfaccountable
- 56. BaseRails No one likesgoing through boring exercises. It’s easy to just quit in the middle.
- 57. BaseRails Being accountable to yourselfis easier if you have a specific goal in mind…
- 58. BaseRails …Like finish buildingyour wedding site
- 59. BaseRails Or showcase yourMVP at a pitch event
- 60. BaseRails It’s also easierif you have someone who’s interested in your progress, like a mentor or friend
- 61. BaseRails Since we wereworking together on the same project, we’d make sure the other person was making progress at the end of each day.
- 62.
- 63. BaseRails 2 Months Later… Webuilt out our second project: an online food delivery web app called FlipOrder
- 64. BaseRails It was amuch more robust web app…
- 65.
- 66. BaseRails With features includingmenu listings…
- 67.
- 68.
- 69.
- 70. BaseRails …and automated transactionalemails when orders are placed….
- 71.
- 72. BaseRails It took us6 months from when we first started learning to code to build FlipOrder from scratch.
- 73. BaseRails It took us6 months from when we first started learning to code to build FlipOrder from scratch. ….and then we asked ourselves why there wasn’t a place that taught this stuff
- 74. BaseRails I mean, 60%of what we learned was applicable to building any Rails app
- 75. BaseRails So to saveothers the time and energy it took us, we created BaseRails, a video learning platform for building web apps.
- 76. BaseRails So to saveothers the time and energy it took us, we created BaseRails, a video learning platform for building web apps. (Here’s where we tell you about the awesome solution we created)
- 77.
- 78. BaseRails Instead of memorizingsyntax or reading programming books, we teach you to prototype your ideas by working on real projects like building an online marketplace.
- 79. BaseRails You start bybuilding the base web app 11 Sections, 43 lectures, 7+ hours of content • Installation • Create Our Website • Add front-end design • Create listings with images • Save and deploy on GitHub and Heroku • Host images online • Allow users to place orders • Enable payments • Transfer money to sellers
- 80.
- 81. BaseRails Follow along thevideo screencasts with our word-for-word transcripts…
- 82.
- 83. BaseRails If you justwant to get the code, view our “Notes” section…
- 84.
- 85. BaseRails If you getstuck on any video, just post your question in the troubleshooting forum and we’ll respond within 24 hours.
- 86.
- 87. BaseRails We also providea video library of popular features so you can customize your app for your own idea.
- 88.
- 89. BaseRails We think learningthis way is infinitely more effective for building web apps
- 90. BaseRails In fact, checkout one of our student’s projects he built with BaseRails…
- 91.
- 92. BaseRails Sign up athttps://baserails.com to get started
- 93. BaseRails Hope this helpedand thanks for viewing! Shoot us your questions, comments, or concerns at: susie@baserails.com alex@baserails.com