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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

#211

Post by SkyMarshal »

[deleted] wrote: post #60
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…

[deleted]

A bit of feedback on your site:

1. Don't call your blog "Poop". You're better than that. I know it's an attempt at being clever/sardonic/wry/whatever, but keep in mind tone and nuance don't convey well on the internet. At best it's self-depreciating but not in a good way.

2. On your About page, that you link prominently on your home page, don't then tell people it's none of their business and call them "rude". You invited them to visit that page, remember? Again, I recognize an attempt at cleverness, but it comes off flat.

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

#212

Post by TeMPOraL »

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…

> 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?

I did. In secondary/high school. God, I miss those times. I've also seen friends pulling stunts like these off, gaininig significant increase of skills over short periods of time [0]. I wish I had even 10% amount of that willpower now, but unless it's something I'm really excited about, it's not happening (probably related to some personal issues).

I also think what she's doing is a more structured (and arguably better) version of what most self-taught programmers I know (myself included) did around high school - have a project idea that you grow, and keep applying what you learn to it every day. It's fun, it helps to get intimate with what you're learning, and it also facilitates fast progress. That's why I think exercises in programming books are a good idea.

[0] - I had a friend who went from "I wonder what this instruction does" to a quite competent C++ programmer and at the same time from total newbie to kicking my seasoned arse in StarCraft over a single summer. Oh, and he works in Google now. Focus + time works wonders.

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

#213

Post by rjwebb »

jenniferDewalt wrote: post #15
headcanon wrote: post #6

I suppose the hardest part of doing something like this, at least for me, would be coming up with a list of ideas of exactly what to create - not just coming up with 180 things, but 180 things that I can reasonably expect to accomplish in one day. Did you come up with that list beforehand, or do you decide today what to do tomorrow, or something in between? Some other random questions that come to mind - What's your…

Before I started the project I freaked out and wrote down a list of every idea I could think of. Sometimes I feel like I'm going to run out of ideas but I usually get inspired by what I've been working on. I spend about 10 hours a day working on the project which doesn't leave time for much else. Most of that time is spent coding the day's website and I spend about an hour at the end of the day writing the blog post.…

Yeah, I feel like on some days I have no ideas and on others I can just churn out a whole bunch of them. Most of them are crap but as long as the average is >1/day then all's good.

Do you find yourself interacting much with people in the co-working space? I don't have much experience with work (period) so I don't really know what the atmosphere's like.

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

#214

Post by hkmurakami »

samstave wrote: post #138
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…

One of my first jobs out of highschool was as a cad drafter for an architecture firm. As the low kid on the totem-pole, I was given the tasks that were not liked by the architects: drawing detail sheets and reproducing blueprints. -- both tasks were highly repetative. I took both as opportunities to find a meditative cadence to the work. I actually really enjoyed the rhythm of taking plots of large 30x42 inch drawing…

I've definitely had that moment before through repetition, in a rather unlikely subject: manually doing Fourier Transform integrals.

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

#216

Post by mscarborough »

bennyg wrote: post #204
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…

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

True, for sure.

But then perfect is the enemy of good, which for anyone doing software should remember.

Until a customer or someone important actually cares about that 2px off CSS, that refactor you want to do, or your caching/performance numbers, just don't do it. Wait till someone asks and then get after it.

I love how OP put her work out there to prove her wide array of skills, or more important, her ability to learn random skills. Who else has put out 180 sites for public review?

Awesome!!

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

#217

Post by petea »

jenniferDewalt wrote: post #150
chacham15 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that your story is very interesting. Essentially, producing volume is the same as iterating on the same product over and over; only starting the iteration from scratch. One thing I would like to point out, however, is that there exists a difference between the set of websites that can be built in a day and the set of websites which cannot. For example, websites which require back-end technologies generally fa…

I totally agree. This project is meant to be a jumping off point for learning to code. On day 180 I certainly won't be an expert at anything, but I'll have the tools I need to keep exploring.

>chacham15: For example, websites which require back-end technologies generally fall into the latter category. The skills learned in perfecting the former are somewhat different than the skills necessary for the latter.

The funny thing is you already knows unbelievable amount of backend code for a beginner. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6099489)

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

#218

Post by vidarh »

pud wrote: post #118
mathgladiator wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i have the problem of starting a project, finishing up the "cool/interesting" aspect, and then letting it rot... http://jeffrey.io/wall-of-shame

I have that problem to. I've found that the best motivator for finishing the boring parts is to have real users. After receiving your 20th "I forgot my password" email, you're sure to build that reset-password feature.

Or you blind yourself to it and learn to just treat those tasks as one more excuse to not do the real stuff. I'm battling that at work: Many people see a flood of notifications etc. and disengage totally - if it's not causing a crisis, then clearly it does not need to be dealt with right away, and so it gets put aside if it's something boring.

I've forced myself to forgo almost all my mail filters and "consume" the raw stream of notification e-mails (thousands a day) and start each day with picking a few of the noisiest ones and addressing the root causes (and where possible doing so in a way that can be applied more broadly), but it's oh so tempting to just waste time on the superficial symptoms that are easy and quick to deal with individually, but will eat all my time if I let them.

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

#219

Post by bennyg »

mscarborough wrote: post #216
bennyg wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

True, for sure. But then perfect is the enemy of good, which for anyone doing software should remember. Until a customer or someone important actually cares about that 2px off CSS, that refactor you want to do, or your caching/performance numbers, just don't do it. Wait till someone asks and then get after it. I love how OP put her work out there to prove her wide array of skills, or more important, her ability to le…

I agree - but I don't think the statement semantically means perfection. It really means "practice makes greatness." Perfect just has a P.

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

#220

Post by mscarborough »

bennyg wrote: post #219
mscarborough wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, for sure. But then perfect is the enemy of good, which for anyone doing software should remember. Until a customer or someone important actually cares about that 2px off CSS, that refactor you want to do, or your caching/performance numbers, just don't do it. Wait till someone asks and then get after it. I love how OP put her work out there to prove her wide array of skills, or more important, her ability to le…

I agree - but I don't think the statement semantically means perfection. It really means "practice makes greatness." Perfect just has a P.

Yes, you said it much more succinctly than I did.
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