There are a lot of tutorials out there that help you learn the basics of programming, that show you how to create a mini web app, or a little game, or something. But they don’t do a good job of showing you how to make real stuff. Like a web application that people would actually use.

There are obviously a ton of beginner courses (Codecademy, etc) and then there are the full-blown in-person bootcamps, but there’s not much in between. And, from what I’ve seen, there’s nothing that shows you how to build an application something based on your own idea. Nada.

Soo, here’s my idea. I want to create a series of videos that go through and show you the entire process of how to build a real application based on your own idea, and then launch it. So other people can actually access it and use it.

The things I want to make sure I cover are:

- how you can come up with an idea if you don’t already have one; - how to take that idea, break it down into smaller pieces, and then build an initial, foundational skeleton application; and then - how to add your application’s custom features on top of that foundation; and finally - how to launch your application

And to demonstrate all those steps, I’m planning to build my own application from scratch. I’ll record everything I do (screencast-style) throughout the entire process and share those videos. Each of the videos would cover one step of the process. (And thus be the basis for each lesson in the overall course.)

Thoughts? Do you think a course like this would be helpful?

If it does sound interesting to you, I set up a little page where you can leave your email address so I can keep you posted on my progress:

http://selftaughtcoders.com/from-idea-to-launch-hn/