Still learning to code…. 3 weeks later (exactly!)

So I’ve done my fair share of dabbling, starting, stopping, being confused, starting again….. and then finally diving in…… for real

 

Here’s what I’ve done so far, I downloaded and tried to learn a bit from Kids Ruby. My thought process: well if it’s easy for a child…… hopefully I can figure it out……

 

And I kinda did, but mostly when I got lost, I got very lost and it was increasingly difficult to figure out where I went awry (translation: frustrating)…… For the record, when trying to learn something you’re not comfortable with at all, frustration isn’t a good motivator…..

 

Luckily, I also downloaded a Ruby Class and an HTML class and signed up for CodeAcademy’s CodeYear deal……. so when going to option two I had choices…..

 

I “started” the Ruby class I downloaded from Udemy, but then got sidetracked by Propcorn things as I was downloading the getting started documents….. and somewhat unintentionally paused that process…..

A couple days later I was going through my email and opted to change my strategy….. even though I have yet to give the Udemy course a legitimate shot, I have now put it on the backburner (mostly) and decided to go with these CodeYear lessons that were starting to pile up a bit……..

 

I completed the first Week of lessons fairly easily with a couple hiccups but they have built in hints that really helped with where I was and what I needed to do to figure out what I had done wrong.

The real problems started to arise when I began the Week 2 lessons. They were (obviously) more complicated, drew off of the past lessons (which it’s safe to say I completed them “in the moment” and while I comprehended a little, I didn’t quite memorize key formatting concepts). But, nonetheless (again, with thanks to the hints and the Q&A sections) I made it through the second week.

 

So far, it’s safe to say that I utterly despise the squiggly brackets ({}) and semicolons……. but seriously……. I can mostly understand how they work but much like when I took Spanish, my syntax (grammar) is lacking…… I need to get better at that…… The best thing is that my understanding of what the code “says” has increased immensely. So that’s a plus……

 

Anyways, I’m now fully engaged in this coding experience. I’ll probably finish up CodeYear’s 3rd lesson this week and start the Ruby lessons while I wait for more CodeYear classes (this will likely confuse my brain more, but I think maybe that’s a good thing? We’ll find out)……

Learning to Code with Thornton.

I know, I know…..

It’s been forever since the last post to this seemingly deserted blog. It wasn’t deserted, it’s just….. well…… anything I type next would be at best a mildly ok excuse…… so yea……. it happened, posts went unwritten, and a lot of my typing time (in regards to Propcorn) has been dedicated to our PropCulture tumblr……

Without sacrificing the tumblr (I’d never even think about such a thing), I have made it my New Year’s Resolution (this is a lie) to post more often on this blog.

That parenthetical statement was the truth. That isn’t my NYR (not to be confused with the New York Rangers of similar abbreviation). In fact, I rarely make NYRs. I’d rather make a goal……. right……. semantics……. whatever……..

So my goal for this year and beyond, is to learn how to code. Know that I know almost as much about coding as I do about designer jeans (translation: less than nothing), I also know that I have this here startup thingy, and it’s on the internet….. and a great big part of how that works involves code……

Last year (I love saying that in the first week of January), I purchased two udemy classes on learning Ruby. Propcorn is written in PHP…… from what I know (not much), the difference between Ruby and PHP is analogous to the difference in Spanish and French…… So, probably when I learn Ruby it’ll help my understanding of PHP, but it won’t really be something I’ll be able to immediately apply to the site. I’m ok with this, at the very least it’ll get me thinking in the right mode…….. The big trick is that if Ruby::PHP as Spanish::French, then Not Knowing How To Code::Knowing How to Code as Being Fluent in English::Learning Arabic

My early prediction: I’ll be frustrated and it’ll take a lot of time, but I’ll figure it out and it’ll be awesome.

And of course, in keeping with my New Years Resolution (lie) to update this blog more regularly, I will be documenting my learning experiences here.

Stay Tuned.

44 days later……

(I wish I had planned on my inbetween post times to coincide with that great number (NOTE: it’s mostly just a great number to Syracuse fans…….. so yea……. everyone) but I didn’t which of course makes it all that much more awesome that it just happened to have happened today……..)

So……….

Things have happened…….

A lot.

Like, a huge amount of things……..

No, not just huge.

Fucillo Huge

(apparently I have Syracuse on my mind today……)

Since I don’t know where to begin and since I already have, I’m just going to start rambling about some of the major changes that have occurred on Propcorn  in seemingly arbitrary bullet points. Because everyone loves arbitrary bullet points………..

• We have more users than ever…… of course, I’d hope we would…….
• We have a new logo, created by my sister……. digitized by me……. just your standard Mountford family logo collaboration……..
• We now have regularly scheduled “featured categories” these are most pronounced on College Football Saturdays and NFL Sundays…….
• You can now embed a Prop onto your own blog, you know, if it suits your fancy
• The major announcement that we’re announcing tomorrow
• Another major announcement that we’ll be announced in the coming days
• We implemented the 7 day leaderboard
• Props are now locked at their decision time………. this is most especially useful for sporting events, live television and major announcements that leak just slightly earlier than the actual announcement
• Proposing Props via Facebook and Twitter has become more robust and user friendly
• Users are now awarded 2 kernels for creating a Prop and 4 for having their Prop featured
• MORE CATEGORIES!
• No but seriously, there’s like a ton of categories now……..

I’m fairly certain I’m forgetting a bit but that’s what I can think of off the top of my head.

There’s more, so so so so so so (times a lot more “so”s) much more to come…….

I also just may (no promises) start typing more on this blog……….

Like, maybe more than once every 44 days………. that’s bad……. my B……… forgive me………

Anyways, I can only assume that everyone reading this is a member on Propcorn (and if you’re not……. wait………. what? GO. GO NOW. SIGN UP. YOU’RE MISSING EVERYTHING!!!!), and as such you have and will continue to get the expertly typed Email compositions, so I suppose you haven’t been totally left hanging, but all the same….. I’ll get back on this…… at least more than once every 44 days……..

Of course there’s more to update like fun anecdotes and stuff of that ilk, which I’m sure really gets you on the edge of your seat, but those will have to wait until another day……. See, I started this when there was a 44 day gap between posts and now tomorrow is today and it’s suddenly technically 45……….. but I’m still going to say it’s 44 for the sake of all things Syracuse.

Until next time.

Goodbye to the Summer, Hello to more things happening in the world…..

Ok, so it’s true that it’s still mid-late August (depending on your definition of “mid” and “late” in terms of days in a month…….) but whatever……… the way I see it, once Fall TV shows start being promo’d and College Football is 10 days away (!) (with the NFL only 17 days away)  from kickoff…… plus NYC is somewhat cool today, and making people (myself mainly) legitimately hope that there won’t be another 100 degree day this year…… fingers still crossed…….. It’s almost safe to say that summer is very much drawing to a close……

 

I’m sure that disappoints some people (mostly those that have school schedules, or beach houses) but as far as “things going on” there is always much more in the non-summery months…….. aka great news for Propcorn.

 

Personally, I’m stoked, it’s seemed to me that even just today there’s been a slight uptick in user-created props (mostly football related), which I believe is a sign of things to come. You know, when it rains it pours and the like……. All of this, of course, is pretty, prettty, preeeettttttaaay good.

 

Anyways, I’m excited and you should be too.

 

-Thornton

The New Frontpage: An explanation and a brief tour (with Screenshots!)

For our New Feature Friday update today, we have re-organized how users will approach the front page:

Now, instead of every undecided Prop ever, you’ll only be able to see Props that are worth Kernels. (Translation: the Props that anybody and everybody can find out the eventual decision of.) The same applies to the “Browse Props” page.

Of course, there are more Props than that which have been created…. so where did they go if they can’t be found on the frontpage or the Browse Props page?

They’re now exclusively on your Profile page, and searchable (quick side note: we’re actively working on revamping our search as well to make it even better).

The good news is that any of your friends will be able to see these Props as well, so if they’re interested in seeing some of your more “friendly props” they will be here.

I know there’s some of you who haven’t really messed much around with the friend feature that much, so I’ll do a quick run tour of how that works as well.

If you want to be friends with someone on the site, simply click on their user name if they have created a Prop for kernels recently. (Note: currently, searching for usernames is unavailable, but it should be added within the next couple of hours, so if you search for a friends name and nothing shows up yet, try again in a little bit (I’ll update the status of this on our tumblr (which also pushes to @propcorndotcom twitter feed if that’s easier for you to checkout): propculture.tumblr.com))

When you view the profile of someone who’s not currently your friend it will look like this:

Simply, click the “Request Friendship” button and you’re a third of the way there….

Here’s what your screen will look like when you do click the “Request Friendship” button:

And finally, when they accept your friendship, this is what the page will look like:

So there you have it. A brand new Propcorn friend!

But how do you know if someone has requested your friendship???

Well, take a gander at your user information in the upper right hand corner, it looks like this (assuming you don’t have any notifications (top box) or pending friendships (bottom box):

If yours looks like this, then you have a request for your friendship! Thus, proving that you are good enough, you’re smart enough, and doggone it, people like you….. :

Click that box, and either accept or refuse your potential new friend, and you’re good to go…..

So that’s about it for this update.

As always, if you have any questions, comments, concerns, dilemmas, life coaching needs, or moral advice…. leave a comment or shoot question@propcorn.com an email and we’ll respond (well maybe not so much to the life coaching needs, but we’ll do what we can)

So much more to come…. stay tuned…..

Until next time……

Live!

And so it begins……

If this is your first time visiting this blog: welcome. It’s a story that details my experience so far in building Propcorn…..

Beyond that, any major developments will be greatly elaborated on here…

For discussion of the props themselves head to propculture.tumblr.com there you will find more frequent (and less verbose) updates……

Wild and Crazy Day

A couple a things happened today……

 

1. Discussed advertising options with our first ad partner (!)

2. Met with Erik to discuss anything and everything (…)

 

3. SET THE DATE TO GO LIVE (!!!!!!!!!)

 

More words!

 

1: Awesome talk…… shockingly……. I rambled at times, but I truly look forward to our future and on-going partnership with Pocket & Flask. Seriously, awesome people doing awesome things. Check out their site: pocketandflask.com Buy their stuff. Be happy. These guys are some odd months ahead of us in the startup game and they’re doing awesome. Really excited to see their growth and if Propcorn can help them on their way to that, all the better.

 

2. It was better than the ellipses give it credit, I left (as I generally do from these meetings) genuinely stoked…. but the ellipses are just cos it pales in comparison to the biggest decision we’ve made so far, which is

 

3. To go live. On the day after the fourth. Which is either a genius decision (nobody will really want to be back at work and will probably be searching for sources to channel their procrastination, we could be that source!) or an average to ho-hum decision (limited opportunity to promote between now (thursday night) and then (the end of a three day weekend filled with aliens, barbecues, jeff goldblum, fireworks, will smith, america, president bill pullman, freedom, boomer, liberty, professor oaken and justice for all)

 

Time will tell, and if you’re just reading this blog for the first time and it’s July 5th or 6th and the world hasn’t been destroyed by aliens who turned our satellites against us, then well, you’re the best.

 

 

Oh. Also there’s ANOTHER blog. (why? why not) for Propcorn stuff, which will be updated at least once daily (think of that blog as the twitter to this blog’s facebook). You’ll find it at the bottom of Propcorn.com when you click “Prop Culture” (creative right? Props (pun) to Will on that one)

I’ll probably update this blog one more time leading up to Tuesday, but until then….. I leave you with the words of the great Charlie Kelly: