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

blog.jenniferdewalt.com

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

#201

Post by obstacle1 »

bencollier49 wrote: post #97
thenomad wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Also doing it out of a paid-for shared workspace. I mean, I love the stuff she's doing, it makes sense that she'd be able to do it working full time, but she must be independently wealthy to be able to afford it.

I know nothing about Jennifer or her lifestyle. But it is not that hard for a young, single person whose main activity is being productive to save up 6 months of living expenses.

Use of shared desks costs like $200 a month at places like Citizen Space, so it's not like that's a bank breaker.

If she had a family it would make less sense. If she were living a 'baller' lifestyle, drinking and partying every weekend, it would make less sense. But if she's an unattached workaholic, her life probably costs very little and no independent wealth is required.

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

#202

Post by jenniferDewalt »

ihnorton wrote: post #149
jenniferDewalt wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You really should blog about this! 'Build one to throw away' is a common (very insufficiently applied, in my case) programming aphorism, but it would be neat to hear a take on it from an artist's perspective where you quite literally throw it away and there is no copy-paste between projects.

That is a really great idea! I am definitely sticking that one in my queue.

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

#203

Post by markdown »

bcbrown wrote: post #198
edw519 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's very helpful, Ed. I recently started a new job, and I've been frustrated that my work output isn't 'perfect' yet. I rationally know that I just need to keep my head down and churn through assignments over time, but it helps to hear that from someone else, too.

http://i.imgur.com/nWcYizP.jpg

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

#204

Post by bennyg »

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…

Practice makes perfect. It's a tired adage, but it's absolutely true.

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

#205

Post by vacri »

wellingtons wrote: post #13

I have to ask: How on earth do you find the time to do this? As much as I'd love to do this in order to get my hands dirty on web development and out of systems, I can't ever fathom having the free time available every day consecutively. I mean, for someone "learn(ing) to code" on Day 1 and by Day 15 doing "Dropping Boxes", it just seems a little far fetched. Obviously you have had a good portion of coding experience…

10 hours/day by day 15 means 140 hours invested in learning. Surely someone with no coding experience can make 'Dropping Boxes' by that point?

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

#206

Post by bennyg »

wellingtons wrote: post #101
jamesaguilar wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She implemented Conway's Game of Life, which is substantially easier than reinventing it. Here is someone implementing it in eight minutes in APL, while explaining it, and futzing around with other stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4 . Also, I don't really understand the suspicion this gets here. Where's the win in giving someone the Spanish inquisition for posting something cool? What's the upside of t…

I totally get what you mean about the skepticism, and I really didn't aim to sound like a spoilsport. However, any would-be (I'm talking zero experience) programmer that looks to this for inspiration is going to be demotivated by not being able to come anywhere near this progress. Because it's not possible. It's deceiving. The website presents itself as a resume or a portfolio, and in a way it does feel like it's sel…

> We're talking about having to grasp variables, lists, function calls - basic stuff - that given no prior knowledge may take weeks alone.

Not true at all. I had no prior programming knowledge when I began Objective-C and all of that was grasped within a week no problem. Pointers were easy to get. Arrays couldn't be easier (even multi-level). Things are so much easier when you aren't sitting in a class and getting told things are hard. Cause most of the time they aren't.

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

#207

Post by sivers »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #187
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…

Is this the Art and Fear book you're referencing? I searched Amazon and found a few. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Fear-Observations-Artmaking-eboo...

Yep. That's the one. Here are my notes on it: http://sivers.org/book/ArtAndFear

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

#208

Post by grecy »

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…

While I love the message from the story, I feel the need to "hack it".

If I were in the "quantity" group, I would have just made one god-awful lump of clay object weighing 100lbs, then found other more interesting things to do for the rest of the class.

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

#209

Post by k-mcgrady »

sivers wrote: post #207
k-mcgrady wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this the Art and Fear book you're referencing? I searched Amazon and found a few. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Fear-Observations-Artmaking-eboo...

Yep. That's the one. Here are my notes on it: http://sivers.org/book/ArtAndFear

Excellent thank you, just added to my Amazon wish list and about to read through your notes.

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

#210

Post by petea »

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…

So let's see her repository (https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt).

This girl not only became a competent front end developer in 100 days, but looking at the Gemfile, she knows how to use capistrano, redis, capistrano, paperclip, omniauth and devise?

She knows the best practices for Rails perfectly. She not only grasped to use MVC perfectly, but also organized asset codes perfectly in like 50 days.

I forgot to mention that she knew Rails from like day 1.

Additionally, she knew better to hide sensitive information about secret tokens for maybe AWS in the config folder and other Rails environment info.

Really? Is Hacker News this gullible? If you really want to see what actual beginner struggle with for 10 hours a day, go take a look at StackOverflow. Beginners are struggling for hours to create hoverover effects and persistent footer.

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