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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

#201

Post by conanbatt »

enraged_camel wrote: post #147
GuiA wrote: 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…

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…

This is wildly judgmental, and it would seem that you are projecting your own values in your assessment of people, which is also very narrowly fitted for technology where knowledge has potential to payoff.

Have you ever met someone with perpetual knowledge of hunger that didnt succeed , and also had a very dented personal life? I met dozens of those, and what do you think they end up regretting?

On the other hand i do agree that hunger and intelligence are very good predictors of someones ability to grow a skill. From that to 'success' there is a huge leap in many ways, from your personal concept of success to the actual real world out there.

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

#202

Post by heynairb »

enraged_camel wrote: post #147
GuiA wrote: 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…

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…

I disagree with your philosophy. You advocate a lifestyle focusing on success and ambition. I believe that having the qualities of both types of people is ideal.

Below is a quote that I found very illustrative of the downfalls of living a life too focused on success:

“Man surprised me most about humanity. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

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

#203

Post by jenniferDewalt »

adt2bt wrote: post #189
thenomad wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

My writing skills have improved dramatically in the last six months of forced blog writing. I also really like having the record of my thoughts throughout the project. Even though blogging wasn't strictly necessary for learning to code, I'm really glad I decided to do it.

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

#204

Post by ag80 »

petea wrote: 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…

She mentions specifically the Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl. This tutorial has a section on creating secret tokens within the first three chapters (while leaving in-depth discussion of it for later chapters), and starts discussing concepts like MVC and setting up a development environment in the first chapter.

I'm working through the same tutorial myself, so I see no reason to doubt that it is entirely possible to set up a rails dev environment and get started in a single day.

I would also argue she is in fact disclosing how "someone else" helped her -- "...sites like Stack Overflow, MDN, CSS Tricks, blogs and demos. I also used some great online tutorials". Using these resources is to me no different than having your experienced developer friend sit next to you. Probably better, in some cases.

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

#205

Post by nzp »

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.

But see, judging people is inevitable. Everybody judges everything all the time, whether openly or not. And in general there's nothing wrong with that. One cannot ever be so objective about oneself to see or acknowledge that something might not be as peachy as one thinks. It's about having more data points to evaluate your life :) and doesn't mean you have to bend to other people's ideas about life etc. Of course, you have to grow some thick skin for this and a lot of people tend to break down really bad when faced with any kind of judgement, but I think learning to receive it is a big part of growing up.

OTOH, being downright mean, or just an annoying busybody is another thing altogether, and, yes, a lot of people have a hard time judging (maybe "evaluating" would be a better word) without at least some malice. But I think saying any kind of judgement is bad isn't at all helpful for individuals or society at large. It leads to people developing blind spots for harmful behaviour.

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

#206

Post by breckinloggins »

ars_technician wrote: post #153
breckinloggins wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand where you're coming from, but I've had over a decade of experience owning and managing both personal and rental real estate so I wanted to chime in. > They were right if you ever want to have a family. Not entirely. "Ever" is a really strong word. If you want to have a family later in life, that should not prevent you from living in places you'd like to experience. You will likely regret being so cautiou…

>There's also a cost of liquidity. $10,000 sitting in a bank account at 0.1% is arguably worth more than $10,000 of equity in a house that might take 3 months to sell. You make a big assumption with that statement. It strongly (and wrongly) assumes that the monthly payments for owning a home are the same as the rent plus whatever you would be putting into savings. There are plenty of homes in other places you can buy…

I don't spend anywhere CLOSE to $2000/mo on rent, and I live in a pretty nice place in the middle of SF.

That's really what I'm getting at: if you're single and don't have a family, and you're happy with roommates and not living in a palace, then you can enjoy SF and not only not go broke, but you might save a penny or two.

Now if your life situation is such that the whole "single and don't have a family" thing doesn't apply, well then it... doesn't apply :)

In my opinion, your argument is very much valid if you want to raise a family or you just prefer to have your own place. Unless you make a lot of money, you're probably better off doing that elsewhere.

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

#207

Post by FLUX-YOU »

enraged_camel wrote: post #195
borkabrak wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The regular 9 to 5 is what some people want . And that's fine . They get their satisfaction in ways we may not -- (stereotypes coming).. a kid to play with, buddies at the bar, plunking a guitar, reading John MacDonald. This is not necessarily even a lack of ambition -- we're all allowed to aspire to whatever lifestyle we think will suit us best. You can't say one way is better without describing what better looks li…

>>The regular 9 to 5 is what some people want. And that's fine. Yes, it is completely fine, as long as they are fully aware of the type of life they will have if they keep up their current habits. For example, if a regular 9 to 5 is what you want, good for you. Just understand what kind of life it will give you. This may sound obvious, but most people don't get it - they work 9 to 5 and complain when they lose their…

There are plenty of 9 to 5 jobs that are useful to the economy. Some of them can quickly shrug off losing a job.

9 to 5, cruising along in a steady-state of knowledge doesn't necessarily imply failure. It depends on that knowledge, of course.

Frankly, with the new-graduate economy like it is, a steady, well-paying 9 to 5 is a luxury, but you make it sound quite bleak.

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

#208

Post by brianmcdonough »

enraged_camel wrote: post #183
danielweber wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

heal thy self

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

#209

Post by stokedmartin »

astrodust wrote: post #90
mooreds wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who talks about the flywheel model of learning. If, every day, you spend even 15 minutes towards your goal of what have you (aka, add even a little momentum to your flywheel), at the end of a year, you will have a lot of knowledge.

It's also called the "Seinfeld Method" ( http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-se... ) or "Don't break the chain."

The chain of Xs reminds me of github's `green squares` signalling a push!

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

#210

Post by kingnight »

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.

I think people may have missed the point here.
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