[mindfulbee]

I'm in college, 20 years old. I've just started teaching myself ruby and python. Do you think I would be able to develop crude prototypes of apps by the time I graduate college? (in about 2 years?) I've been dedicating around 6-10 hours ever week so far and plan to dedicate more once summer starts.

[dantheta]

I would certainly think so (the two languages you've mentioned are both regarded as being quite easy to get started with), but everyone is different and is interested in different things. If the demo app you're writing (and the framework you're using, if any) allows you to try something and see the results quite quickly, that's a good way to avoid getting discouraged.

Although frameworks (Rails, Django etc) are a good way to avoid writing boring or non-unique stuff, they do add to the amount of up-front learning you have to do before you can write _your_ programs (since you have to learn the language _and_ the framework at the same time). Trying out some noddy programs that just use stdin/stdout is a good way to learn the language features first and then the framework can follow afterwards.

Early code in any language is always horrible when you look back at it a few months later, don't beat yourself up :)