Tell HN: 2 weeks ago, I didnt know programming. I just wrote a web scraper.

&#62; <i>To all business MBA guys learning to code: you can do it! just get started!!</i><p>No, all of you can't. But it's not a bad idea to try and see if you think you'd like it!<p>I am reminded of the half-joking book title: "Learn to Program in 21 Years".

Congrats. Programming is made out to be a hard thing and for people who don't think logically it is. But to a logically thinking person it's like the greatest game you'll ever discover.

Way to go. Now make sure you save your code and take a look at it in a year. That's when you'll really see how far you've come.

Congrats, glad to hear you had success. I'm curious as to why you started with C#. Most people these days are steered the way of Python or Ruby it seems. Care you elaborate on your goals?

I would venture to say that you knew programming, you just didn't know <i>coding</i>. Organizing a good program is not all that different from organizing a good business.

I did almost this exact same thing back in 2005. I had not programmed anything in YEARS and I had to help write part of a system that performed DB queries, screen scraped, file transfers, etc.<p>In a 24 period I tried Java, Perl and Python and in the end Python won by miles and miles. I now use Python daily for all sorts of tasks. I love it.

Good for you. Personal development never ends.

Yeah, that was what I did when I didn't know anything about programming, too.<p>The next step is to learn why web scraping is discouraged, and how to use public APIs instead.

Well done! If you write a detailed account of how you did it, you are bound to inspire a lot more people to try it out.

Your next step on the path to being a hacker is to share your work. Where can we see your "web scraper" in action?

If you'll permit me to be annoyingly geeky, "That's good. You have taken your first step into a larger world." :)

Thanks for the support and positive comments guys :)

Well done!

Congratulations.