NatQuayle: NatQuayle: I’m guessing based on @happybeing’s guide to building apps, my first step is gonna be to learn Rust.

I certainly wouldn’t recommend Rust for this - not saying its a bad idea, but there are several options.

For beginners I think web apps rather than desktop might be worth considering. See this post:

happybeing: happybeing: Are you thinking only of building apps for desktop, or might you build a Web app (ie like a website, which runs in the browser)? If the latter, then you will need to learn a mixture of HTML/CSS and JavaScript, and probably add in a web framework such as ReactJS or AngularJS (there are quite a few others). You can use other languages to build web apps but I think it would be easier to stick with the above unless you want to build desktop apps, which run directly on Windows or Mac or Linux or iP…

You can use the Web app (HTML/CSS/JavaScript) approach for desktop apps too (as with Web Hosting Manager example by MaidSafe and also @Shane’s Safe-CMS.

Using other languages is a matter of language preference really, so Rust is also good but maybe not as easy as JavaScript or Python.

Part of the problem for newcomers is I think having so many options. This also makes it hard to say X is best, because unless you know what somebody will want to do once they’ve learned a bit, how can you know what would be their best starting point? Generally people tend to recommend what they know and like - so listen and look around, then jump in and ask for help!

I chose the Web app route myself because I was out of touch and thought that would be the quickest and easiest way for me to create something useful - that proved a good decision for me, and I think not having to deal with targeting different operating systems can make starting out a lot easier for beginners, but if they then decide they want to build system level apps obviously I’d have recommended something else and Rust would be top of my list if I wanted to do that. Also, at the time I didn’t realise how much work there would be for me in learning what git, github, nodejs, npm, webpack (and next yarn :-/ ) were and how to use them - but having got the basics they are incredibly powerful so I’m glad I did. But all these approaches and tools can be bewildering even for somebody who spent many years in software development, so it’s a big hill for anybody new to climb - so be prepared for parts of this journey being tough and getting disheartened. Dealing with that is part of the skill IMO. But the view from the summit is terrific

@Shane is planning some live streaming of his development, so check that out too. Sitting next to a programmer and watching them is a great way to learn. Ultimately, the key skill is problem solving, and learning to stay with a problem that you don’t yet know how to solve, but that takes time. To start with, learning how to tackle different tasks, and how to put things together, how to test, how to design etc are all building blocks. Oh, and how to debug!

None of that depends on language choice - those skills will be useful forever… until AI that is - but I will probably still code even then, it is such fun!