Live data from Hacker News

I'm learning to code by building 180 websites in 180 days. Today is day 115

blog.jenniferdewalt.com

71–80 of 370 posts

Re: I'm learning to code by building 180 websites in 180 days. Today is day 115

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Start the day by producing instead of consuming." Sounds wonderful. I'm going to try and live by that. Thanks for this :)

but i love breakfast.

Then cook it before you eat it.

Re: I'm learning to code by building 180 websites in 180 days. Today is day 115

#73

Wow, this is really inspiring. I see that she's hosting them all on her personal domain, but I have a question, if anyone has an answer. What's the easiest/most cost-effective way to host a large number of sites on different domains? Learn how to use a VPS? Static pages with NearlyFreeSpeech? I've got a zillion ideas (and after seeing this, will be building them soon) but they need to be on separate domains. Paying $…

You can buy a large number of domains but don't want to spend $5/month for them?

Re: I'm learning to code by building 180 websites in 180 days. Today is day 115

#74
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow! that's happened with me so many times. I'll start on a project and I'll always theorize all the best features, and then best technologies to use and I end up switching so many technologies and then going on a tangential curve to learn them, and then I eventually quit the project :(

Ditto. A common problem for me is starting a project, then becoming scared that I'll be inadequate, and not complete it properly. This causes me to give up on the project, and I lose out on any experience I might have got. Because I've failed to complete the project, I feel even WORSE going into the next one. It's a vicious cycle.

Consider reading a book called "The Now Habit". The author discusses fear of success/failure and the inability to finish projects, and deems that these fears are what cause us to procrastinate. Then he provides a plan/approach/framework to overcome these fears.

Re: I'm learning to code by building 180 websites in 180 days. Today is day 115

#75

Really great idea Jennifer! This is the kind of initiative and creativity that will surely land you multiple job opportunities. It reminds me of the steps which I took to transition into working on software professionally full time. I came to programming relatively late in life when I was 26 and found out that my wife was expecting a baby. The sudden change facing my wife and I made me take a hard look at my skill se…

> I got the chance to interview for a local android dev shop (this is in Santa Cruz, CA) > There is so much opportunity and demand in the consumer web and electronics space right now

Very true - but your location is a huge benefit to someone who's in say, the middle of Iowa or Kentucky.

Re: I'm learning to code by building 180 websites in 180 days. Today is day 115

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seconded. day 46 you wrote a snake game using canvas manipulation? i call shenanigans.

Did you look at the source? It's like 160 lines of code. Experienced programmer could do this in one hour, and I'm sure someone with 1.5 months of javascripting could do it in a day.

You can't be serious. Take a good look at that code. Public and private vars and methods, proper indentation, proper variable scoping, pretty and readable (the cleanliness is the least believable part, does that like a noob's code to you?)

Have you ever worked with someone who has no programming background whatsoever and taught them programming? I have, and this kind of progress is insanity after 1.5 months. 10 hours/day or not, this kind of knowledge doesn't get uploaded to your brain Matrix-style.

Re: I'm learning to code by building 180 websites in 180 days. Today is day 115

#77
post #48

This is awesome. Reminds me of the girl who learned to dance in one year by recording herself every day. Also reminds me of Seth Godin who recommends starting the day by producing rather than consuming and follows the practice by writing a new blog post every day, without fail. Consistency is so hugely important. Quality is born from quantity.

> Quality is born from quantity Could be. But Seth Godin is hardly the living proof. In fact, I've stopped reading his blog long time ago precisely because of the sheer number of "I need to write about something today" type of posts. I much prefer when people write when they have something really meaningful to say. Which is what Paul Graham usually does, for example. I guess that's a case for "quality breeds quality"…

A blogger I read, Tynan ( http://tynan.com/ ), writes a blog post every day, however he posts only the best ones, in order to maximize quality (i.e. both from being selective and from the practice of writing).

Re: I'm learning to code by building 180 websites in 180 days. Today is day 115

#79
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seconded. day 46 you wrote a snake game using canvas manipulation? i call shenanigans.

I definitely see your point, but from her description she spends 10 hours a day on this excersize. I could see that level of progress given those constraints, 10 hours a day every days for a month and a half is insane dedication. On the other hand that level of dedication seems to indicate that apparently she has some kind of OCD, no disrespect just wild speculation.

Erm, isn't 10 hours a day approximately one full-time job?

If she's, say, taken a six-month sabbatical to learn to make websites, this seems eminently reasonable and doable without speculation about mental illness.

Re: I'm learning to code by building 180 websites in 180 days. Today is day 115

#80
post #54

There’s this great story from the book “Art and Fear”, that's very appropriate here: === The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bath…

Exactly the anecdote that I thought of when I saw this project.

It also reminds me of Johnathan Coulton's breakout period - his Thing A Week project: http://www.jonathancoulton.com/category/thing-a-week/

Incidentally, this technique works. If you want to learn a creative skill, I'd argue it's about the best way to do it.

Post reply on HN