It's easy to get caught up in the cool and grandiose when designing a user interface, but any developer can tell you the real work is in the simple stuff. Take Yes/No or OK/Cancel buttons in a dialog box: what order should they be in? Got the answer? It's wrong.

Invoicing service FreshBooks is part of the software canon for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It's shown up in Lifehacker recommendations from 2009 to 2018, and it's still one of the best ways to stay sane when billing multiple clients. Two years ago, the company rolled out an entirely new version that it had secretly developed under the name Bill Spring. We talked to FreshBooks co-founder and CEO Mike McDerment about building his own company's biggest competitor.

Everyone has a killer app idea. But getting into development? It's not something you just do — it takes time, preparation and most importantly of all, money. Fortunately, there are a few aspects of app development you might be stressing about unnecessarily.

Lifehacker has collected a lot of "learn to code" resources that are especially helpful to new learners. But if you've already done a little coding or taken just a couple of courses, and you want a more thorough education in both theory and practice, start with the site Teach Yourself Computer Science.

Ever had a great idea for an app but don't know how to code? In this article, we'll walk you through the process of creating your own app by examining five software tools to get the job done.

Machine learning (AKA AI) seems bizarre and complicated. It's the tech behind image and speech recognition, recommendation systems, and all kinds of tasks that computers used to be really bad at but are now really good at. It involves teaching a computer to teach itself. And you can learn to do it in well under a year, according to data scientist Bargava. You'll need to put in a solid 10-20 hours a week, but you will learn a lot along the way.

Programming is one of the most valuable skills you can pick up in these modern times, whether for career prospects or to stretch your brain and create something awesome. If you're just getting started on your coding journey, here are ten tips and resources to set you off on the right foot.

Changing career paths, getting an idea for an app out of your head, or just learning something new and useful are all great reasons to get started programming. Learning a programming language might sound as intimidating as learning an actual foreign language, but with the right tips, hints and resources (conveniently provided below), you can go from bumbling bash user to the viscount of vim.

Programmers can be difficult to talk to. Not because they're socially inept (although that can sometimes be a problem too), but because you have no idea how to do their jobs. This makes it tricky to know exactly how long a requested task will realistically take to complete - or even if it's feasible.

This flowchart from visual designer Anna Vitals explains how to direct the conversation without coming across as rude or clueless.

Brian Fox is a titan of open source software. As the first employee of Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation, he wrote several core GNU components, including the GNU Bash shell. Now he's a board member of the National Association of Voting Officials and co-founder of Orchid Labs, which delivers uncensored and private internet access to users such as those behind China's firewall. We talked to him about his career and how he works.

It's Computer Science Education Week, and Apple is offering thousands of free coding sessions at all Apple Stores. There are all sorts of workshops happening - at my local store, aspiring coders can learn the basics of the Swift programming language, design a maze and navigate Star Wars droids through obstacles, and bring robots to life using the Swift Playgrounds iPad app.

This is one of those pranks for someone who's enough of your friend to not murder you afterwards, but also kind of deserves a little pain. The Mimic script changes characters in a code file to alternative characters that look the same to human eyes, but completely screw up the syntax. I pity the victim.

Python is one of the best programming languages to learn. As you get started, this one-page reference sheet of variables, methods and formatting options could come in handy.

If you think back to your high school geometry class, you might remember that "If/Then" statements were used in solving mathematical proofs. But even if maths wasn't your thing, you actually use If/Then statements every day: "If it's raining outside, then I will bring an umbrella." Or, "If I eat this doughnut, then I will be very guilt- um, happy."

Sphero might be best known for their brilliant Star Wars robots - R2-D2 and BB-9E are all kinds of awesome. But the company is about more than making nifty playthings. The Sphere Mini is a spherical robot that acts as a gateway for kids to get into programming, as well as a funky little gaming device.

From HTML to CSS, there are hundreds of programming languages out there, and companies across every industry are willing to pay top dollar for those skilled in them. While you could go the conventional route and sink four years of study at a university, SitePoint Premium offers an alternative that will get you up to speed with today's top programming tools for a fraction of the time — and money.

You're at your desk coding and you hit a brick wall. Maybe it's a strange error, or round after round of fruitless debugging. Or maybe you're just trying to understand quaternions. How can you get past the problem when caffeine and staring into the middle distance fail?

Dear Lifehacker, I hear you mention open source software fairly often, but I don't quite understand what that means in relation to what I use everyday. Any help?

Are you a coder or white-hat hacker looking to make some money on the side? Bug bounty hunting might be the perfect gig for you.