Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

blog.jenniferdewalt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 370 posts

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

#101

Post by wellingtons »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #43
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…

She implemented Conway's Game of Life, which is substantially easier than reinventing it. Here is someone implementing it in eight minutes in APL, while explaining it, and futzing around with other stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9xAKttWgP4 . Also, I don't really understand the suspicion this gets here. Where's the win in giving someone the Spanish inquisition for posting something cool? What's the upside of t…

I totally get what you mean about the skepticism, and I really didn't aim to sound like a spoilsport.

However, any would-be (I'm talking zero experience) programmer that looks to this for inspiration is going to be demotivated by not being able to come anywhere near this progress. Because it's not possible. It's deceiving. The website presents itself as a resume or a portfolio, and in a way it does feel like it's selling something: herself.

Yes Conway's Game of Life, Pixel Paint, etc. can be made in surprisingly limited time and code, but not by a novice programmer. We're talking about having to grasp variables, lists, function calls - basic stuff - that given no prior knowledge may take weeks alone.

This is someone with a solid understanding of programming and who has borrowed (very skillfully I'll say) from tutorials and examples - very good skills to have, but separate from her claim.

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

#102

Post by thenomad »

bencollier49 wrote: post #97
thenomad wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm, isn't 10 hours a day approximately one full-time job? If she's, say, taken a six-month sabbatical to learn to make websites, this seems eminently reasonable and doable without speculation about mental illness.

Also doing it out of a paid-for shared workspace. I mean, I love the stuff she's doing, it makes sense that she'd be able to do it working full time, but she must be independently wealthy to be able to afford it.

Or just taking a sabbatical.

I know a fair number of people who have retrained at University for another career, for example. Most of them weren't independently wealthy - they'd just saved up enough to be able to afford to go to university for a year.

Edit: that's exactly what Jennifer says she's been doing, above - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6098083

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

#103

Post by slieberman87 »

ultimatedelman wrote: post #27
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…

also, you built MS Paint on day 39. again, shenanigans.

I don't think it's shenanigans. My step brother just started learning to code 2-3 months ago, 100% self taught through online tutorials. He is already a good Rails developer with several entry level job offers.

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

#104

Post by karolisd »

This is inspiring and I'm not sure why. It's not technically impressive, there's far more impressive tutorials and snippets a single Google search away. It's something about the persistence and a desire to learn and improve. It's about the beginner's mind and artistic whimsy. I get to see someone's thought process expressed through a hundred tiny websites.

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

#105

Post by jenniferDewalt »

future_grad wrote: post #56
jenniferDewalt wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just before I started the project, I looked around the internet for some resources to see what I was getting myself into. There are so many awesome places to get information out there. Stack Overflow, the Wikipedia, demos, tutorials, documentation. I spend about 10 hours a day working on the project and the vast majority of that time is me digging through those amazing resources.

Just curious, how do you fund working on these projects 10 hours a day? Good work on them. Perfect way to have a portfolio ready for the world.

I saved up some money so that I could learn to code full time.

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

#106

Post by freehunter »

ultimatedelman wrote: post #27
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…

also, you built MS Paint on day 39. again, shenanigans.

I took a 6-week Java course that, for all intents and purposes, was self-taught with the teacher just giving and grading assignments (not actually doing instruction). Week two had us make a paint program with multiple colors and an eraser. It's all about how much time you can put into it, and how much of that time is spent pouring over documentation.

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

#107

Post by chacham15 »

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…

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 fall into the latter category. The skills learned in perfecting the former are somewhat different than the skills necessary for the latter. I would encourage Jennifer to take some time after this and explore the second category to further her abilities.

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

#108

Post by Domenic_S »

frossie wrote: post #88
Domenic_S wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be serious. Take a good look at that code. Public and private vars and methods, proper indentation, proper variable scoping, pretty and readable (the cleanliness is the least believable part, does that like a noob's code to you?) Have you ever worked with someone who has no programming background whatsoever and taught them programming? I have, and this kind of progress is insanity after 1.5 months. 10 hours…

Yes, it takes just years of practice to achieve proper indentation, or, you know, one key press in emacs. I was a TA for an introductory computer class and yes, some people do write clean code within days. There are people who naturally get the how and the why of it.

What, you're saying that because it's easy everyone will do it? That's funny.

The percentage of folks who started coding a month ago (and have 0 CS background) that format their admittedly-rushed one-day project properly is so low it's a rounding error. The number of them that indent properly and understand scoping is effectively 0.

Look at her background. This is an art project, not a coding project. The code could come from RAC for all it matters, this is a performance piece.

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

#109

Post by thenomad »

yaddayadda wrote: post #96
thenomad wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Erm, isn't 10 hours a day approximately one full-time job? If she's, say, taken a six-month sabbatical to learn to make websites, this seems eminently reasonable and doable without speculation about mental illness.

10 hours a day, 7 days a week, for almost 6 months While it is far from a definitive diagnosis, it isn't 'normal'. Without a doubt it is ambitious, and her progress thus far impressive! If only we all had 10 hours a day for a full 6 month period to spend pursuing ambitious goals ...

Shrug. Maybe it depends on whom you hang out with. Personally I spend a lot of time with successful entrepreneur and creative types. This sort of focus and commitment, whilst it's definitely laudable, isn't abnormal amongst that crowd.

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

#110

Post by babuskov »

Domenic_S wrote: post #76
babuskov wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you look at the source? It's like 160 lines of code. Experienced programmer could do this in one hour, and I'm sure someone with 1.5 months of javascripting could do it in a day.

You can't be serious. Take a good look at that code. Public and private vars and methods, proper indentation, proper variable scoping, pretty and readable (the cleanliness is the least believable part, does that like a noob's code to you?) Have you ever worked with someone who has no programming background whatsoever and taught them programming? I have, and this kind of progress is insanity after 1.5 months. 10 hours…

You're right, the code does look professional. It's clear and concise, not something you would expect from a beginner.

I still expect a beginner to be able to create a snake code in one day, but maybe there's more to this story than she's telling.

Post reply on HN