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

blog.jenniferdewalt.com

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

#181

Post by mmorris »

ars_technician wrote: post #100
breckinloggins wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. That's why the no dependents part is essential. If you are single and willing to live with roommates, you will be able to navigate the "high cost of living" pretty successfully. I'm living quite comfortably in San Francisco and spending a fraction of what I was spending in Texas. Why? - No car. No gas. No upkeep. No payments. No insurance. No inspections. No car. - Roommates. I HATE living alone so this was a n…

>They were wrong, and I was a fool for listening to them instead of exploring it for myself. Don't make my mistakes. They were right if you ever want to have a family. You are building no equity in rent so you will essentially have to leave and start over somewhere else to have kids. Your story is fine as long as it ends with you being single and alone without any real assets.

I'm not an expert on real estate, but some of what I've read suggests that your statement is an oversimplification, assuming you have a mortgage and are paying interest on it.

Since I'm annually paying around 3% of the market price of my apartment, and you're paying X% interest annually on your mortgage (minus tax breaks, but plus maintenance costs, etc.), there is some value of X at which I'm not really losing much money by renting, right?

http://patrick.net/housing/crash1.html

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

#182

Post by amckenna »

andyl wrote: post #6

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

It seems that people took that comment negatively but I read it as a complement. She is a good writer, presents herself well, and could also be a marketer or spokesperson.

If someone is better at x than y, it doesn't mean they are bad at x, especially if they are very good at y.

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

#183

Post by enraged_camel »

danielweber wrote: post #169
dionidium wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of "you should do this" posts on the internet can be summarized as, "people like me are pretty dang great."

People who judge others are the worst kind of people.

You have the right and the duty to judge the people in your life. This doesn't make you a bad person. On the contrary, it's part of the human experience.

People who say they are not judgmental are the worst kind of liars, because they lie not only to others, but also to themselves.

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

#184

Post by ionforce »

sharkweek wrote: post #39
jacquesm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not it has not, yes it has. Web development is for many intents and purposes now the equivalent of software development. That there are other areas of interest (embedded, systems software, application development and so on) does not detract from the fact that if you want to do software development web development is more than likely your point of entry and it's a field wide enough and deep enough that you could easil…

I hate the argument that you have to dive into some complex language to really "understand" programming -- Some people just like to build stuff; much akin to someone who might just want to change the oil in their car. You would never ask them to build an entire transmission for their first project.

Sure, you don't "have to" but you most likely do.

To understand something implies some grasp of scope and size. And if you're continually working on toy problems, you'll never encounter problems of the appropriate scope or issues of scale.

So that's kind of what people mean when they say you need to work with something complex. To understand a complex system is to know which parts are important and which aren't and at which levels of examination.

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

#185

Post by ekm2 »

legacy2013 wrote: post #176
enraged_camel wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two type of people in life. The first type graduates from college and their learning stops for the most part. They say to themselves, "well, I studied for four years and got a job, now it's finally time to sit back and relax." So they put in their regular 9-5 and then come home and waste their lives away by watching TV shows and playing video games and going out and getting drunk on weekends. Essentially, t…

Hey! I watch tv, play video games, and get drunk on weekends. I also have a girlfriend, friends, a new kitten to look after. Oh and I have multiple side projects I work on while having a full time job. Just because people do one thing doesn't mean they don't do other things.

Just because people do one thing doesn't mean they don't do other things.

You are good.He is only talking about people who only do one thing.

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

#186

Post by ars_technician »

nbouscal wrote: post #180
ars_technician wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing what the point of building equity in a home is. It's not solely an investment vehicle like stocks, bonds, options, commodities, etc. By building equity in a home, you are also eliminating your cost of rent. >You dont need to own property to have equity and to state otherwise is a disservice. Again, you do if you want your cost of housing to go towards building equity.

You're not eliminating your cost of rent, you're ( maybe ) lowering it. Whatever percentage of your housing costs go towards interest, property taxes, HOA fees, homeowner's insurance, mortgage insurance, etc. are not going towards equity. Especially early on in a mortgage, the vast majority of your housing expenses are not going towards equity. Your analysis is only correct late in a mortgage. Early in a mortgage it'…

What you don't seem to be getting is that if you are renting, ALL of it is going towards non-equity expenses. A monthly house-payment of $2000 is still better than rent of $2000 even if 90% is going towards interest/insurance overhead.

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

#187

Post by ionforce »

a3voices wrote: post #166

If a man did this, would it generate the same publicity? I am genuinely wondering, I'm not trying to troll.

Yes and no, depending on your metric. If you look at it from the "hobbyist does cool hobby thing, gets a lot of upvotes" then yes. But if you look at it from the "minority does X cool thing" then the answer is no.

I think there is some novelty that gender is being wrapped up into this. But I don't think a man doing the same thing would be completely ignored.

I'm in the middle of studying a foreign language, so I am quite sympathetic to the "must do something every day" challenge. Man or woman it's quite commendable, no matter how small the feat.

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

#188

Post by ritchiea »

antimagic wrote: post #23
JPKab wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Careful champ - that was not necessarily a snarky comment. A more charitable reading would be that the andyl thinks that the OP could make more money / have a better career by focusing on what is clearly an intuitive gift that is highly valued in the employment market...

The phrase "not a coder" at the end of the comment signals snark pretty heavily. Suggesting that someone who spent the last 180 days coding should not be a coder is a very rude and dismissive. The OP could have easily praised her marketing savvy without suggesting she should not be a coder.

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

#189

Post by adt2bt »

thenomad wrote: post #105
adt2bt wrote: post #9

Congratulations, Jennifer. I really appreciate the lessons learned here. Like my favorite college professor (and I'm sure many others, as it is a fairly popular quote) would say: Sometimes you have something that looks really ugly and gross. You can liken it to having to eat a slimy, bumpy frog. The best way to eat the frog, is just to swallow it. Once you get in the habit of swallowing your frogs, the rest of your d…

I linked this above, but it's so directly relevant to your idea that I thought I should re-link it here: check out the Julie/Julia project, which was one woman doing approximately the same thing with cooking, albeit on a more focused topic: http://web.archive.org/web/20021217011704/http://blogs.salon... (As a side note, I love this idea, and would cheerfully jump into doing it myself were I not already rather overcom…

You know, I might as well throw it up on a blog. I need writing practice, photography practice, food shopping practice and cooking practice. It also helps keep me motivated!

Thanks for the Julie/Julia project link. I have been considering going through Thomas Keller's great books in a similar way as well. I have Bouchon Bakery, and I've made probably 20% of what's in there. I haven't found anything that disappoints yet.

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

#190

Post by ars_technician »

nknighthb wrote: post #174
ars_technician wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You literally said the exact opposite of the point you were implying throughout the rest of the discussion. We were talking about ways to live cheaply. Then YOU were the one that changed positions and said we were talking about someone making the minimum effort to save money, which as you rightly pointed out could mean someone not saving money at all. What is the point of discussing someone who doesn't save in a thre…

This native English speaker believes there was absolutely nothing wrong with anything he said, and that you have been deliberately obtuse.

Well your anecdotal evidence really helps. The point is that what he said means two exactly opposite things depending on how reasonable you think it is to live by yourself.
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