Before you hit compile, look at the key lines of code that you just wrote and think about exactly what you expect them to do. Then compile and run the code. Don't rush to compile. It'll take longer in the long run. Also, it's less enjoyable to program that way. I prefer a careful, focused style where every line is carefully written.
I know what you mean about hitting F5 all the time. I usually program that way when I don't feel like thinking. I want to cross my fingers and hope that it works. When I notice I'm doing this, I need to stop and think about what it is that I'm doing. I'll often write down in text what I'm trying to do. Or I'll turn off the computer and think about it.
I read about half of Dive Into Python, and it was pretty advanced stuff. It's good if you know another programming language very well. The book starts out slow, but the difficulty curve accelerates very fast. I wouldn't read it cover to cover. It would be a good reference to have though.
I'd suggest skimming the table of contents of both books first.
Then again, Dive Into Python is free, so you might as well start with that, and if it's too advanced, switch to Learning Python (I read the first 100 pages of it last summer, and I thought it was good, I'm a fan of O'Reilly).
If you really want a beginner book, Learning Python is a great choice. It was just updated too. Good luck.
Heroku is awesome. Great idea, great vision. Scalable hosting makes so much sense for web applications. If they get it developed and working properly I'd definitely pay to use their service.
Yeah the tech talks are awesome. The Museum of Computer History has some great lectures on tech talks. One that I particularly like is titled "Great Principles of Computing". It's a nice summary of the past few decades of computing principles. Here's the link: http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=5494452304620274339
Nice. I like your list. I forgot about reasons 9 and 10. I've known some pretty opinionated people who I would imagine would be very hard to do collaborative work with.
Lol about the "dreaded single founder thread". I don't keep up with YC News everyday, so after I posted I figured that this topic has definitely come up before. Oh well. Maybe people have changed their views since the last time it was posted and have interesting things to share.
Yeah, it seems like a good idea to just start building alone if there is no one else to do it with. People can be added later.
Yeah I agree. Working on something with someone who is excited about the project is a pretty great thing. Combining strengths is definitely a huge advantage too.
This is definitely something I want to sit down with and soak in.