just tristan.

python(ing)

Hey everyone! I’ve been sticking to me Resolutions so far, and it has been great. I’ve been having good fun learning python but I wanted to reach out to my friends with some good python experience to help me out / critique my progress so far.

I’ve been using the text “Learn Python the Hard Way” and it’s awesome. I’ve completed about 36 of the total 50 lessons and I was challenged to write my own program for exercise 36. I decided to write a ‘lil trivia program for my friends to play with. It’ll ask a questions throughout the program about me in various periods of my life.

Here is the link to the program: Tristan’s Friendship Test! (dropbox link)

The ask for my programming friends:

run the program (before looking at the code itself) in terminal and try to answer all the questions. Shouldn’t take longer than 3-5 minutes.
after running the program in terminal, write down a one or two word critique on the program (i.e. “fun”, “crappy”, “needs work” etc)
open up the program in whichever editor you like and critique the way I wrote the code. Would you have done certain things differently? I’ve also added a couple questions in the program asking how I’d do certain things that could have made the program a little cleaner. Would love your thoughts there too! Feel free to add comments in the program and save it.
save your (brutally honest where appropriate!) thoughts in the editor and shoot it back to me! (p.s. i’ll owe you a beer or three!). You could shoot me a cl.ly, dropbox link etc.) Whichever is easiest. (twitter: @tristanwalker). Make sure to add your name / email / twitter to the file too so i could thank you personally!

Thought this would be a fun experiment to keep me honest and will help me to get better much more quickly.

Let me know your thoughts!

(note: keep in mind, I started Jan 1 this yr. I know my code is likely terrible, but I want to focus comments / replies on specific actions I can take to get better)

22 Jan 2012 / 4 notes

There is only one god and his name is Death. And there is only one thing we say to Death: ‘Not today.’

From “Game of Thrones.” I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE this quote. So applicable to entrepreneurship and a fantastic quote to use when times get tough. Stare death right in the face and say “Not today” … LOVE LOVE LOVE this quote.

21 Jan 2012 / 9 notes

10/26/2011 - tunnels.

2 Jan 2012 / 1 note

My Favorite Companies to Watch in 2012

Last year on Dec 31, I wrote a post: Favorite Companies to Watch in 2011

I had fun doing it so decided I’d give it a go again this year. But first, a quick recap of last year’s selections before the 2012 predictions.

foursquare - I’m biased, but I think we have had a fantastic year. 15+MM users now, well over 1 billion checkins, and over 600k merchants (with no salesforce), many thousands of brands leveraging the platform, our American Express partnership showing folks there’s another way to think about local / commerce. It was a good year.

square - Yup. Still love this company. Square is processing over $11mm/day vs $4mm in July vs less than $1mm late last year. Damn!

path - I have been a fan of Path’s since Day 1 of launch. For the majority of the year, their progress was slower moving than I would have hoped, but they turned it around in a big big way…and to rave reviews. The team there is stellar. The only challenge I see for them is how they’ll get the newer users to think of it as a more intimate, private network vs. accepting friend requests from their friends / followers on other social services.

quora + fitbit - It’s hard to know how I did here since there aren’t any public stats from each company. Both are really great services and the quality of both products has improved over time and getting great mainstream attention / love. For FitBit, the entry into the market from folks like Jawbone and others is validating the market opportunity. There’s still a long way to go to before there’s a winner in the space but they’re on the right track.

Now for the 2012 predictions:

Stripe - will have a big year this year. Stipe makes it dead simple for any developer to start accepting payments online. Accepting payments is a pain (compliance / risk / etc). Also, Stripe’s timing is perfect. E-Commerce is a huge growing opportunity and Stripe will be able to put online merchants to work quickly much like Square is able to for brick and mortar merchants. Paypal isn’t doing much here and Stripe can be super nimble. Lastly, John and Patrick Collison (founders) are the real deal and incredibly bright.

Asana - I’ve been using the Action Method (web / mobile / books) for quite some time now, but each day I have been using Asana more and more. Asana still has a few kinks to work out (better iphone app, ability to sort tasks by date!) but when they do, it will be awesome. Making employees more productive is probably one of the biggest opportunities in business. What I really like about the potential for Asana stems from a b-school case I read about McAfee’s (antivirus software) start. John McAfee distributing his product (far and away superior to other products in the market) for free as shareware on his bulletin board. He was able to hook individual users on the software. Those superfan users would use that software at work and the companies liked the result so much that they paid the enterprise licensing fee for the software. Asana is poised to do the same but in a more powerful way (effects on execution very visible to all employees)

Codecademy - the world is changing and everyone needs to develop the skills necessary to really participate in the new high tech / high value economy. If America is to remain competitive, its citizens need to be prepared to stay competitive in this new world that is becoming less and less analog and more and more digital. Companies like Codecademy can really help lead the way here.

Votizen - 2012 = election year. Politicians are in disarray. Citizens are untrusting. So, shit really needs to change. I think Votizen has a wide open opportunity to get folks excited again about the potential for this country. There are a bunch of issues I’m starting to care a great deal about: Jobs, China, Immigration. I’ve never had any great outlets to find folks (particularly peers) who care about the same issues and want to do something about it (SOCIAL). I’ve also never had any real great / effective outlets to, with my peers, communicate directly with politicians who can effect real change (TRANSPARENCY). Votizen will be that opportunity. Now, as a business guy, the market size / opportunity in politics is so very significant

Palantir - will get the mainstream credit it deserves. Palantir is the the best Silicon Valley startup you’ve never heard of. If you’re not familiar with Palantir, stop what you’re doing and read this article from Businessweek: Palantir, the War on Terror’s Secret Weapon. They have some of THE best technical talent in the world and they’re solving very big problems. From what I know they’ve made major inroads with government and finance, but opportunities in other verticals, like retail / manufacturing etc could prove to be very very large opportunities for them. And frankly, they have close to zero competition.

My wish for 2012 (more likely for 2013 though….) - Someone will start to figure out sensors. Whoever nails it (be it with the mobile phone or wearable devices) and takes advantage of ALL the low cost sensors out there (accelerometer, gyroscope, etc etc) will not only make everyone’s lives better and more interesting (from health to retail to finance) but also make a great deal of money in the process. I’ve been getting more and more excited about the potential here. Anyway, we’ll see….someone will build a great business with this in mind.

Thoughts?

(note: After writing both of the posts, I realized Keith Rabois was a shareholder in a bunch of the companies. Amazing leading indicator. But that’s for another post…)

#2012
#tech

31 Dec 2011 / 31 notes

resolutions.

It’s about that time of year.

Last year, on dec 31, I met with my good friend nathan folkman for a cup coffee at cafe barrone in Menlo Park. That was the last cup of coffee I had. I realized I had no real need for it and wanted to see if I could pull off not drinking any coffee for a full year (to start). I did it.

I learned some good lessons in execution in past year. If you havent read “Making Ideas Happen” by Scott Belsky, I’d highly recommended it. His process re: the Action Method was a game changer for me. It all really boils down this…

In years past, my resolutions would be absurdly vague: “go to the gym more,” or “drink less coffee,” or “learn to code.” Result = out of shape, high strung, business guy. I found this past year that being super detailed with the action item (“drink not one sip of coffee”) helped immensely. This year, I hope to do the same. This year, I’ll have two resolutions:

+ “drink zero beverages with caffeine” (coffees, non-herbal teas, sodas, etc) through December 31 2012.

+ spend 1-2 hours, 5 days a week (From Jan 1-March 1) learning the basics of Python. Goal will be to create a dead simple web app I’ll likely use these three as my guides (also open to suggestions!): Learn Python the Hard Way and The Django Book. I’ll also leverage some of the stuff over at MIT OpenCourseWare

So, that’s it. Happy 2012!

29 Dec 2011 / 27 notes