That's just down right cool
Too bad it is most likely not true! But it's a down right cool PR move
Why do you say that?
After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder
251–260 of 383 posts
Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder
#252I unfortunately have some doubts about the authenticity of the claims made. I know other people have already shared a similar opinion but I'd like to candidly provide my own in the event a beginner, intermediate, or even aspiring programmer happens to read this. I often teach programming. Not formally in school, but to friends and family who come to me to learn. When any of them begin to learn, there are always, alwa…
I find this perspective odd because as a self taught programmer I didn't bother learning or trying to learn any of the formalisms you mention like 'variables, strings, and symbols'. I learned by having a concrete project goal motivated by personal desire that I wanted to accomplish by any means possible. This usually came down to copy/pasting existing code from the internet and fiddling with the values via trial/erro…
With respect to the formalisms bit: I didn't expect him to understand deeply about those kinds of formalisms. I don't expect most beginning programmers to care, even. But the conflation of the ideas was apparent in his (faulty) intuition of them, and it impeded comprehension. In order to use a string, you must, at some level, have some sort of understanding that it is data. How your understanding manifests itself is different.
The copy/paste/fiddle process can work when you have some sort of understanding what to copy, paste, fiddle, and search for. Developing that understanding so quickly also leads me to doubt.
Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bravo! Very inspiring. It seems like the OP learned a lot about more than just programming: project management, developer psychology, the importance of shipping.... One thing did stand out to me: Having to produce something everyday forced me not to get hung up on understanding all the details of how something worked. This is actually one downside of this method. In the end you don't really learn anything deeply. In…
I'm definitely not done learning. Next up for me is tackling some bigger projects and spending some time figuring out how all the pieces fit together.
It's an inspirational journey. Thanks for sharing! This is how I would tell my kids to learn programming.
Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder
#254I'm confused about the word Coder. I have found most website developement is just following directions, and memorizing a lot of man made terms. If you put out a lot of ROR websites, or write Java scripts you can call yourself a "Coder", but I still feel that the term Coder belongs to Programmers. I can put up a website, but programming from scratch, is beyond my attention span, and maybe intellect? I don't know why w…
Coder != website developer, methinks. There is a world beyond the web, after all.
At any rate, the word "coder" is just so... ugh... you may as well get right to the point and simply refer to yourself as a brogrammer. "Coder", "coding", all of that, it just sounds so wannabe-hip. I cannot possibly be the only person who feels that way.
Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder
#255This 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…
Bravo! Very inspiring. It seems like the OP learned a lot about more than just programming: project management, developer psychology, the importance of shipping.... One thing did stand out to me: Having to produce something everyday forced me not to get hung up on understanding all the details of how something worked. This is actually one downside of this method. In the end you don't really learn anything deeply. In…
On the other hand, a lot of developers have a tendency to dwell way too long on minutiae. The ability to just plow through and get something working is a good skill to have. As long as it's not the only tool in the box.
Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder
#256I unfortunately have some doubts about the authenticity of the claims made. I know other people have already shared a similar opinion but I'd like to candidly provide my own in the event a beginner, intermediate, or even aspiring programmer happens to read this. I often teach programming. Not formally in school, but to friends and family who come to me to learn. When any of them begin to learn, there are always, alwa…
I don't get your point. Sure, some people have issues with those things. Let me give you an example. I used to help out a lot of people while at school, and most of them couldn't wrap their head around what a variable was. I was the one helping them since the first class, and I wasn't one class in front of them either. I simply understood it quickly. I could "grok" faster than them, for some unknown reason. I am by n…
I was by no means arguing one couldn't learn all of these things on one's own. I, too, am a self-taught programmer, and in fact, it makes it even harder for me to make an assessment of the claim without comparing to myself.
All of the information is on the web, you're right. But just from a practical standpoint, it takes time to even learn about what you need to search for. One great piece of wisdom is that as you become more proficient in an area, you learn (1) what you need to learn, and (2) what you don't know. Jennifer seemed to not have any apparent issue figuring out what was needed, and seemed to be able to answer all the questions she needed answering with little or no delay.
I don't have difficulty believing that one can learn all of those things on one's own. I do have difficulty believing that for someone with little to no technical background, all of those things could be achieved at the rate they were achieved and in the timespan they were achieved. The reason I have an issue believing it was exemplified by the experiences I've had. My point was two-fold: firstly that I think doubt is warranted, and secondly that up and coming programmers should not be discouraged if they can't match the same throughput and output as Jennifer seems to show.
Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder
#257"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…
maybe it's a language issue, but the weird paternalism in this post is making me queasy
Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder
#258I 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…
Not to mention she uses git, which is not a trivial tool. I don't see many total beginners adopting it. A beginner usually just wants to learn how to develop before diving in and learning the complexities of version control.
Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
Evidence of why I tend to lurk on HackerNews. Some of you lot are insufferable sometimes.
Agreed. This tendency has been really noticeable lately. No constructive criticism, no insight or analysis. Just pure negativity. I really think that what OP did is great and very few people could have done something similar.
Some of the insanely pretentious people on here drive me crazy. It's like the guy who sat next to you in class and always derailed class with someone inane humblebrag or argument with a professor or classmate.
It's like a lifelong inferiority complex that manifests as the need to constantly promote yourself and never be happy for anyone else.
Re: After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder
#260This 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…
There are two kinds of people in this world: Those who believe there are two kinds of people in this world and those who are smart enough to know better.