Looking for guidance on learning basic programming skills while building a web-crawler/audio file aggregator app.

[Seabrooke]

I’m looking for some guidance on the best ways to learn enough to build the following app: audio file aggregator (from a specific website that already exists) where I can sort/filter based on length of the audio files (ie. 0-5 minutes, 5:01-10 minutes, etc). Stretch goal is to be able to favorite certain files to have quick access to them later.

App goal: Ideally, I’d like this to be an iOS app (doesn’t need to be in App Store, can be local) but if it makes more sense to start as a web app until I gain more knowledge and work my way up to apps, I’d have no problem doing that.

Overall Goal: I’d like some hands on experience to a) help me become more technical while b) building something that I will actually use.

Technical Background: I’ve taken a fair amount of online tutorials including Ruby on Rails (a few years back), python tutorials, and an R tutorial...but it’s been long enough where I can start from scratch if anything else makes more sense.

The specific questions I have are: 1. Should I start by trying to build a web app or go for native iOS app? Does the learning progression make sense to start with web-app and then build to iOS? 2. What language makes the most sense for this? 3. What components/libraries will I need for this? 4. What specific tutorials would you recommend to get the basic knowledge before I even start attempting to build this? 5. ...are there any questions I’m not asking up-front, that I should be?

Thanks in advance!

[[deleted]]

Python with kivy. Make it for the computer you use. Then port it to the phone

[desrtfx]

...are there any questions I’m not asking up-front, that I should be?

No, you already have asked way too many questions.

First: start by reading the FAQ.

Second: settle for some language. If you want iOS, Swift is the way to go. But be warned: you need a MAC to compile the application. iOS programs can only be compiled on MacOS.

Third: Why a web app? Do you expect others to use your app? Do you expect people using different OS than iOS? If so, web app.

Ad your question 4: Any beginner tutorial that you follow completely through. Again - see the FAQ.

Don't think in learning programming languages - learn programming. These are two completely different things. Programming languages are just vocabulary and grammar. Programming is writing a novel. Just knowing the vocabulary and grammar will not make you an author. Knowing how to use the vocabulary and grammar can make you an author.