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

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

#151

Post by gknoy » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 7:55 PM UTC

ultimatedelman wrote: post #123

zerr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting how that is implemented. Didn't quite get from viewing page source. I mean, where is js?

at some point, she learned about minification and http requests and concatenated all her scripts into one "application" script.

I can appreciate the reasons for doing so, but as someone interested in reading her code for how she did it, it might be nicer to unbundle and not minify them.

Then again, thanks for the point about her Github repo. It's probably clearer to just go read that. :)

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

#152

Post by eat » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 7:56 PM UTC

These comments are infuriating, but not unexpected. So many people who have likely wasted their last 115 days attempting to find every fault with someone who clearly hasn't.

OP: Excellent work, and keep it up. I hope you take the criticisms and disbelief for what they truly are: incontrovertible evidence that you're doing something very right.

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

#153

Post by lobotryas » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 7:57 PM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #117

it_learnses wrote: post #58

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 :(

I used to have this problem (and still do to some extent) but it's not impossible to improve. Pick an idea and commit to completing it in the way that you envisage it now, even if midway through you discover a new technology or better way to do it, stick to what you originally planned. There is always a better way to do something and if you allow yourself to be distracted by a "better" way of doing something midway t…

Aka: don't repeat the mistakes of the Duke Nukem Forever team.

As for code, the best code is that which generates value (either for the creator in terms of learning or for the creator's customers). If the code doesn't generate value, then you might as well be writing FizzBuzz implementations all day.

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

#154

Post by jqueryin » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

This is great and all, but I do have to call BS on no previous coding experience. Perhaps she had plenty of HTML experience and wouldn't regard that as coding experience. If you look at her early examples, even on something like day 3, you find the following in the source:

    * Inclusion of a CSS reset stylesheet
    * Inclusion of jQuery 1.9.1
    * Usage of HTML5 footer tag
    * Inclusion of the HTML5 shiv JS

If this wasn't boilerplate HTML being used, I have no idea where a beginner would know these three things on day 3. Perhaps just stumbling upon the right project?

Also noteworthy is the inclusion of an external JS file for loading Google Analytics. Most people have no idea what this is or how to set it up

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

#155

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 8:00 PM UTC

Domenic_S wrote: post #76

babuskov wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#156

Post by gmrple » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 8:01 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #99

sivers wrote: 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…

This is a great reason to do what is often frowned upon by us high achieving Hacker Newsers: get a job. I have worked on so many projects in so many jobs that I lost track long ago. But it's always been the same: Get it done, good enough, on time! At first, I was always frustrated that I wasn't delivering product up to my own standards. But a funny thing happens when you do that hundreds (or thousands) of times: You…

Thanks, I've been feeling like what I've been doing lately just isn't up to snuff, and have been getting frustrated. I think this will help change my perspective.

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

#157

Post by freyr » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 8:03 PM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #144

freyr wrote: post #143

So many hurt egos in this thread. If you think what she's done is impossible, have you ever devoted 70/hrs a week to a personal endeavor for 6 straight months? Would you have the willpower and perseverance to stay committed and focused? Also, these are cool sites, infused with a lot of creativity and a refined aesthetic sense, but it's not as if she's claimed to have written an OS or compiler in 115 days. Much of the…

The solid-block-of-learning strategy is way less impressive to me than the person who works a 40ish hour a week job then comes home and does many more hours of their own project for moths or years. The want to zone out is strong and after a day of crappy and mind numbing work, beating the laziness is harder I think.

> The solid-block-of-learning strategy is way less impressive to me than the person who works a 40ish hour a week job then comes home and does many more hours of their own project for moths or years.

You might also say the guy who uses a lawnmower is way less impressive than the guy who cuts his grass with a nail clipper. But I don't want to be the guy with the nail clipper.

Believe me, I know the feeling of wanting to zone out after a long day of work, a long commute, etc. I let it sideline my ambition for a decade. She found a way around it. I certainly wouldn't discredit her for that.

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

#158

Post by ValG » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 8:09 PM UTC

An additional anecdote comes from Jerry Seinfeld, (comedian). He says that his goal when he got into comedy (and still to this day) is to write jokes every day. Create a chain of joke writing and keep track of it in a physical way (in his example, a calendar that he marks off with an X every time he sits down to write). You create momentum that you don't want to break, and even though you might not be writing good jokes (good code, etc...) every day, there is still improvement going on. [1]

All anecdote, but it seems to point to the fact that the value of iteration on DOING is more valuable than iteration on PLANNING. (i.e. plan a little bit, and do a lot).

[1] http://www.writersstore.com/dont-break-the-chain-jerry-seinf...

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

#159

Post by antitrust » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 8:10 PM UTC

sivers wrote: 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…

> It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work-and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

I find this story very suspicious.

Even theorists like to apply their work and prototype.

It sounds more like they were scared into inaction by the grade-weight, which is something I've seen in classes where one test determines the grade for the whole semester.

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

#160

Post by kpennell » Wed, Jul 24, 2013, 8:11 PM UTC

jenniferDewalt wrote: post #122

Scaevolus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think your art background helped you develop the focus and dedication to work on projects for such long periods of time? Most programmers couldn't manage that.

Absolutely! When making art, you often go through a 'research' phase where you make a lot of sketches, models, mock-up, etc. Most of it is garbage but at the end you've prepared yourself to tackle the real thing. I sometimes think of this project as a really intense version of that process.

I'm going to move to India to do just this.