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I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

codeamigo.dev

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Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#191

Post by ironmagma »

0xFACEFEED wrote: post #185
ironmagma wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of harm does this actually do to Codecademy? I would argue none. There is no downside to calling them out.

Just look at the comment above mine: "booo on any company that". Some people will perceive his rejection as bad hiring practices on Codecademy's part. Every comeback story needs a bad guy that rejects or pushes down the hero before they rise. That's what makes this post interesting. It's certainly not the content; creating a web app of stitched together NPM packages isn't exactly a major challenge these days. Especia…

> Some people will perceive his rejection as bad hiring practices on Codecademy's part.

FTR, I have no opinion for or against Codecademy.

Whether it's a bad or good hiring practice depends on what you think of this guy. The information on whether any company hires or rejects a certain applicant is not a trade secret. If you read this and think, "this guy's a douchebag," then yes, the company looks sane and reasonable, the opposite of bad. If you read it and think, "this guy is perfectly reasonable," then yes, the company looks bad.

This poster isn't saying anything about whether Codecademy is good or bad, they're just stating the facts, which were created as a result of the company's hiring decisions. If the facts make them look bad, that's on the company for making the choices they did. If they make them look good, the same applies. Again, I have no horse in this race.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#192

Post by epolanski »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #83
atomicnumber3 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This gets me too. In high school I called it "the power of a blank text file." Something about knowing that this was how every great software product began life was very empowering and intoxicating to me. When you open vim and look at the blinking cursor, you stand on the precipice of greatness in the shoes of every programmer who has ever lived, all of you united across space and time by that peculiar feeling you ge…

I suppose this is what "high self-effiacy"[0] means. I've only recently learned this word/concept, but your quote fits. You see a blank text file, you see an interesting challenge, something you're sure will lead you somewhere nice. I'm gonna admit - I'm the opposite. A blank text file scares me . I don't know what to do. I spend a lot of time agonizing over what I want to write, trying to desperately narrow the spac…

I am like you too. I’m not fond of blank projects where I can let creativity thrive. I would not know what to do. But give me a piece of paper and an idea and I can roughly detail all requirements for the project, create a backlog and tasks for a week. I’m more interested into the coding challenge offered by the work. I get more satisfaction in finding the best solution than in the result.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#193

Post by [deleted] »

pageandrew wrote: post #155
m00x wrote: post #133

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.

[deleted]

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#195

Post by mixmastamyk »

plondon514 wrote: post #171
pageandrew wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you sign up you can change the theme in settings!

Agreed, more neutral color is needed. Also, the contrast/thickness of the borders is way too high. Funny, because I usually complain contrast is too low for typical sites.

I also had trouble reading the About... tooltip. I'd probably move that to the sidebar?

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#196

Post by maximp »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #86
aspencer8111 wrote: post #35

Good on you man! You: 1. Dodged a bullet (booo on any company that would reject someone with this level of passion). 2. Created your own product (which you seem even more passionate about) 3. Did all the heavy lifting to make it interesting out of the gate (provided content). Wishing you all the success!

> 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…

> Codeamigo appears distinctly different than Codeacademy in some key areas

I imagine that building and releasing _the exact clone_ of the product from a company that rejected you would be petty and legally dubious.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#198

Post by stoned »

Rejecting someone three times from something is pretty brutal. How bad could this candidate have been? Is Codeacademy like the Rhodes Scholarship or something?

One of my luckiest breaks was when a college that rejected me the first time around accepted me the second time I applied. Really grateful for that opportunity.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#199

Post by type_enthusiast »

madaxe_again wrote: post #142
susam wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My introduction to computers was similar. I began by learning turtle graphics in the Logo programming language during my childhood days. It allowed me to be creative and draw pictures on a blank canvas using code. Back then, for me, programming was not about solving useful problems. Instead it was about expressing whatever random ideas come to mind. Quoting a relevant excerpt from my own blog post[1] that I wrote som…

Similar sort of experience, although we had no turtle, so it was BASIC on the MICRO for us. 10 MODE 7 20 PRINT CHR$141”A text adventure” 30 PRINT CHR$141”A text adventure” May as well have been the opening bars of Beethoven’s 5th, for the infinite and incredible possibilities which followed. Anything. I could make anything . It was the most incredible sensation and realisation - and still is.

For me, it was QBasic under MS-DOS.

    SCREEN 13
is the start of endless possibilities!

I think this kind of experience is missing for kids now – but I'd guess it's more about how ubiquitous computers are, and how there's a lot more between the kid and the computer. When a CLI is your interface, making even rudimentary graphics feels like achieving magic. When your interface is a cell phone or GUI, there's a much larger leap from zero to "feels like magic" – OK, so I made a circle bounce around the screen... there's already an app that does that.

Re: I was rejected by Codecademy three times, so I built my own

#200

Post by q-big »

rpmisms wrote: post #187
samstave wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its where "mac fanbois" or "BOFHs" come from... I worked with a guy who was so mac focused he was blind to other tools/perspectives and it was often a friction point between team-members...

So many people like this just need a little dose of pragmatism. It helped my worldview immensely.

The problem is that this kind of idealism is often what kindles the passion for various programmings topics in quite some people.
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