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After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

blog.jenniferdewalt.com

121–130 of 383 posts

Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

#121
post #14
post #6

Her ability to attract attention was remarkable. She should become a marketer or spokesperson, not a coder.

Your ability to be a dick is remarkable. You should be a mall cop, not a coder.

Slow down chief. GP's point might have been strong but no need to jump to insults.

Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't call male coders "boy", let's not call female ones "girl" unless they're a fourteen year old or something.

"girl" is used in place of "guy" because "guy" has a masculine connotation. I'd be happy to see "gal" but it's a little anachronistic.

What? Calling grown women "girls" is even more anachronistic. Seriously, the one-word pronoun "She" would have worked much better in the original sentence.

Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it doesn't still stand. You just adjusted from your initial 20% up to 35%, which essentially eliminates most of the 'savings' money you mentioned in your post. Also, the apartment assumption isn't that generous. If you want to live in SF by yourself, that's what you will pay for a decent apt.

> If you want to live in SF by yourself Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about someone who is making the bare minimum effort to save money. My mistake.

That doesn't even make sense. If someone is making the bare minimum effort, then they would probably live by themselves. Are you sure you thought that message through?

Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

#125
post #50
post #38

I don't know why she has never mentioned someone she worked with at all. I commented about this about her 70 days ago. --- 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 Rai…

> Really? Is Hacker News this gullible? Not so gullible so as to take to heart what you're saying, considering that you created your account solely to deride her. Here we are, 70 days after your account was created, and yet you've only posted 1 comment that wasn't negatively criticizing her? And your only argument is a copy/paste of your original complaint from 70 days ago, all based off of source-control introspecti…

Criticize the comment.. not the intention.

Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

#126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your math implies 64k after taxes, which is only 20% and is completely wrong. The effective tax rate in Cali after federal and state is closer to 40%. That leaves 48k after taxes. Take out the 24k you blew on the 2k/mo apt and you're down to 24k and you haven't even put food on your plate or paid for transportation costs. Take out 4k for food assuming you don't eat at nice restaurants. Take out 2k for a train pass an…

I don't think it'll be 40% for someone making 80k per year. The effective federal rate on the first 80k is around 20%. The CA rate should be 9-10%. Maybe another 5% for soc sec. But I also made a very generous assumption re: apartment spend. I think my point stands.

> I don't think it'll be 40% for someone making 80k per year.

It won't.

At 2013 rates, on $80k of total income for an individual ($73,900 in income subject to income tax with the $6,100 standard deduction, but no other deductions/credits):

  Effective federal income tax on total income: 18.0%
  Effective CA income tax rate on total income: 5.72%
  SS+Medicare: 7.65%
  California State Disability Insurance tax: 1.00%
  Total effective income and payroll tax rate: 32.4%

Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

#127
post #7

This is fantastic. Especially inspiring to me, more than the fact that she learned how to code, is the fact that she dove into something that she had no background in, and after 180 days she came out with a solid understanding of the basics of programming; enough to do stuff on her own (and, combined with her graphic design/illustration skills, probably enough to do freelance webdev or get a junior level position in…

This feels similar to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where people commit to writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I've finished it a handful of times, and after a few attempts and some post-November polish, my output could now be mistaken for a coherent work of fiction in the English language.

Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

#128

"The project certainly hasn’t given me a comprehensive understanding of software development, but it has laid a broad foundation for me to jump off of" No it has not, and no it has not. Don't get me wrong A+ for the effort... but it is a very small niche oriented effort. Comprehensive? Watch Rich Hickey talks ( http://www.infoq.com/author/Rich-Hickey ), try reading and exercising data structures (b-tree, rb-tree, bit…

I am going to answer here so I address everyone from one single place (some sort of DRY for answers) Web development has not become the equivalent of software development. There are multiple other areas, Web development is currently a good entry point for self tough people, but not the only either. I know a lot of people that start with VBA macros in Excel. Let me put it this way: I learned how to change the brake pa…

> And finally... what is the difference between a jerk and tough love? can you recognize when you see it?

Yes.

Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco, New York, Boston, Seattle, maybe Chicago. This list is not exhaustive.

All of those places have prohibitively high cost of living to make saving six months of salary very much not trivial. It's possible, but it isn't anywhere close to trivial.

Prohibitively high if you want to live in walking distance to your job. I work in SF, have a 15 minute commute, and pay a tiny amount for rent because I live in Oakland. Pretty easy to save.

Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder

#130
post #77
post #38

I don't know why she has never mentioned someone she worked with at all. I commented about this about her 70 days ago. --- 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 Rai…

While I don't think you're trying to discredit her, I definitely think there was someone helping her and coaching her. I don't think that makes her effort any less important, but I think it'd make sense to at the very least acknowledge it.

Isn't an important part of learning well finding a coach, a mentor? Evidently she was able to do that. Also, by taking the advice, she demonstrated flexibility. The fact that she did what she did also demonstrates perseverance. Damn, I wish I could get her on my team.
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