I'll be honest, this is a great start and a good app that not a lot of people would achieve and deliver. Hopefully this feedback can be constructive. It does not feel like a modern "professional" app though, the design is extremely lacking and not something you'd see from an intermediate+ frontend dev. The "New lesson" part doesn't work because it's behind an auth check, but there's no error message and it's displaye…
I disagree about the design. The layout of the app is fine, and its very functional and easy to use. The only problem is the colors. That blue has to go.
I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own
171–180 of 258 posts
Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks, I didn’t dig deep enough to find the edit blog buried at the bottom. That definitely clears things up.
> Thanks, I didn’t dig deep enough to find the boy buried at the bottom. That definitely clears things up. ...there's a boy buried at the bottom? i hope that's a typo!
Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
This may come across as facetious and/or condescending, despite my intentions to be to give actual advice here... Learning TDD is what helped me get past this. It's surely not the only way to do it but it really made it click when I did. In learning the craftsman style of TDD (i.e., the fluffy altruistic style) helped me to grok breaking down tasks, not because I wasn't able to have a detailed view of the big picture…
It doesn't come across as facetious/condescending. Thank you for your advice. I'm actually using a TDD-ish approach in my work, but I never felt comfortable letting it actually drive design decisions. I don't believe it works that way - I can explore the design space up front and pick good solutions faster than it would take me to organically arrive at them through applying orthodox TDD. I'd like to do more TDD-ish a…
Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh, you don’t want to be rude? Really? Why just come in here to shit on the devs project? I saw your previous “constructive” criticism. Do you know how hard it is? How many fine details are involved in launching something? Please display some of your solo work, so we can see the merits of your valuable “feedback”
I definitely know how hard it is, I have 10 years of experience and I'm now staff eng and team lead at a 50B+ MC company. I had my own startup, and built many projects first-hand, but I'm not going to de-anonymize myself for the sake of argument. In my opinion, it should always be hard. OP had a good launch and delivered, which is something that's incredible and that only I also love the fact that he did this out of…
Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1. Dodged a bullet (booo on any company that would reject someone with this level of passion). Passion is a double-edged sword: When a person's passions align closely with the company's needs, it's wonderful. But if a person's passions conflict with what the founders want, the passion can amplify the conflict. That's why it's important to understand exactly what the candidate is passionate about. If they're passion…
> If they're passionate about helping the company wherever necessary, that's one thing. Why would anyone be passionate about any specific corporation? Sounds like a great way to be exploited. People are passionate about enjoyable activities such as programming, not companies. They help companies with their problems because they get paid for it.
Speculating that it's perceived risk mitigation. If you're perceived as loyal, helpful, and even somewhat capable, they'll keep you around! This is in fact the perfect role for that person who gets a lot of juice out of supporting someone else achieve their goals. It is also probably a personality thing.
Of course, you have to answer a generalization of your own question: why be passionate about anything? It doesn't seem to be a necessary, or indeed very useful, to improve darwinian fitness.
Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe he put it in a wrong way but he has a valid point. How can you be so passionate about working in a place you never worked at? there's a big risk you're just in love with the idea and you'll be deluded once you experience it first hand. It's a risky hire if the day to day job doesn't match his big expectations.
I agree with the point. Fully. I think this would be a good thing to try and clear up during hiring if the candidate is inexperienced or seems to have trouble with commitment. However when reading the above the tone seemed ridiculously over the top, which is why I tuned in.
Mission Accomplished.
Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's complicated. At my last startup (web application) I was in charge of hiring for the technical team. I've got an application from a guy who really really wanted to work there. But the truth is that he didn't have basic coding skills (in that, he couldn't do FizzBuzz level of coding). I really tried to get him in but in reality we would not have been able to put him in any position. I was sad because he sent the b…
Someone that passionate can probably be mentored into the skill set necessary to do the job. I spent a year at a TA at a University and in that time I had two students who were really stellar. They were outstanding programmers. They paid attention detail and wrote elegant but easy to read code that worked. I took the time to offer both of them my assistance if they needed any help after graduation. I play video games…
Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own
#178I don’t understand the title? How do you get ‘rejected’ by Code Academy? It’s not a ‘boot camp’ with an application process. You either do the free lessons offered, or pay up for one of the ‘Pro’ level tiers. This title seems sensational, and it’s misleading to people not familiar with Code Academy. Considering that, it doesn’t sell me on this product. In fact it makes me not even want to look at the lessons offered,…
Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would've been very happy to contribute on any level. I have a desire and passion to be in the ed-tech space. Eventually I just figured that the lowest barrier to entry was building my own site.
Cool site and congrats on a successful launch! Tip: Add it to your HN profile.