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

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

#301

Post by noAlchemy » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 9:23 AM UTC

mindrag wrote: post #189

freyr wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solid-block-of-learning strategy is way less impressive to me than the person who works a 40ish hour a week job then comes home and does many more hours of their own project for moths or years. You might also say the guy who uses a lawnmower is way less impressive than the guy who cuts his grass with a nail clipper. But I don't want to be the guy with the nail clipper. Believe me, I know the feeling of wanting…

If I could ask, how did you find your own way around that feeling?

I know I'm not the GP, but might be able to be some use here. Context: always wanted to do a maths PhD, but ended up stuck running a small business (50-70 hrs/wk) for a number of years. Managed to keep studying through this and have just landed a PhD. Suggestions:

1. You'll be working while you're tired. So your work won't be as good, you won't make optimal decisions 100% of the time, sometimes you will just underperform relative to you at your best. Accept this - your work is still better than all the work you weren't doing before. Slow progress is always better than no progress. Key here is creating space that's just for work. I have a table which is just for studying, and a logon that's only for studying, which actually really helps.

2. Pick a course of study and stick to it. There's a tradeoff here - for a given area of study, you want to choose the best course for you but don't want to waste time trying several different things (likewise languages, frameworks, etc). Pick 2-3 and whittle down quickly (I choose 2-3 MOOCs or textbooks, then whittle down using the first chapter over a week or two). There may be a slightly better course out there you don't know about, but it really won't make a difference.

3. If your intention is to become a professional, pick a specialisation quickly (even almost randomly if you have to). No-one would give me the time of day when I was just generically interested in 'maths' but as soon as I picked a sub-area and started to learn about it, people took me seriously. (Obvious caveats apply about over-specialisation)

4. Start talking to other people. You really need to have done 2 & 3, otherwise you won't have any progress to show, and nothing to talk about, but once you've done enough to talk sensibly to others (which might be less than you think) then you'll be more engaged and less likely to drop out/quit.

5. Accept your limitations. Sometimes work/life will take over - sometimes you can make sacrifices and continue to get work done, sometimes doing this would be too painful and you'll need to take a break to get things in order. The thing here is just to show up.

If I had to choose one sentence from all of this to give as advice, it'd be the last one. Just show up.

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

#302

Post by girvo » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 9:25 AM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #99

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…

This is a great reason to do what is often frowned upon by us high achieving Hacker Newsers: get a job. I have worked on so many projects in so many jobs that I lost track long ago. But it's always been the same: Get it done, good enough, on time! At first, I was always frustrated that I wasn't delivering product up to my own standards. But a funny thing happens when you do that hundreds (or thousands) of times: You…

I'd agree and add to that: go work in sales for a while. Pitching and selling becomes second nature :)

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

#303

Post by mattlutze » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 9:31 AM UTC

rickhanlonii wrote: post #252

amerika_blog wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe in "just do it" and worry about the details later. However, on the internet, there is a worship of "hard work" that strikes me as emotional more than real. Hard work is 1/2 of the equation. The other part is your wiring: intelligence, skill, etc. Not everyone can do everything. We can dumb down any task to the point where anyone can do it... but at that point, it's a bubble waiting to pop.

Hard work is half of what equation? Is the equation 'success in life as measured against everyone else,' or is the equation 'success in life as measure against yourself'? If the question is the latter--which is the only question a person should care about--then hard work is very close to 100%. This isn't an emotional claim, it's a rational and evidence based claim. The reason that there is a rightful reverence to har…

> "If the question is the latter--which is the only question a person should care about--then hard work is very close to 100%.

'Success in life as a measure against yourself' is only a part of the consideration, though. Another part is 'Should I be doing this?'

You allude to this in your discussion but don't come out and say it, which is why 'success [sans the "in life" bit] as measured against everyone else' is an important question as well.

After n units of hard work, how much closer will I get to that someone more intelligent than I? Close enough to be competitive, or simply closer to my potential? Is my optimum potential competitive against my peers? If the effort is to be more than a hobby, the answer to that question (borne from the first of your two potential equations) is the key to deciding if the hard work is a variable we _should_ change.

In the case of that first equation/gate check, might wisdom and intelligence be the weightier reagent?

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

#304

Post by eitally » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 9:54 AM UTC

antitrust wrote: post #197

nashequilibrium wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It sounds more like they were scared into inaction by the grade-weight, which is something I've seen in classes where one test determines the grade for the whole semester." I would love some deeper insight into this, do you have any sources? Thanks.

Other than personal observation, no, I'm afraid. I doubt there is any (greater than zero) interest in researching this topic, especially since most of us get nostalgic for any type of system if we've succeeded in it. However, having gone through a number of competitive schools at different levels of education... the smartest kids were not always at the head of the class. There were also people of moderate to high int…

This has been my experience, too. If you looked at the makeup of the top 10 students in my high school class, you'd find it composed of about 50% raw intelligence and 50% hard work. There is absolutely no question that there were a couple handfuls of super-smart folks who graduated nowhere near the top of the class (but still in the upper quartile, generally because doing worse than that is pretty tough if you're reasonably intelligent), but the consistent effort at producing quality output by the hard workers earned them top marks. Not surprisingly to anyone, this cohort tended to perform better at university, where independent study is more critical to success, and (afaik) they're all doing great professionally. Of those top ten, the hard workers are mostly doctors now and the geniuses are mostly STEM professionals.

Of course, this is a tiny sample size and there are all kinds of biases, so take it as it is -- a personal anecdote.

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

#305

Post by eitally » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 9:55 AM UTC

Aqueous wrote: post #133

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…

This is the reason why a) I let myself off the hook for work that had to be rushed and isn't quite perfect when it ships, and B) why I'm not so goddamn critical of other people's work. Most of us are works in progress, doing the best we can, iterating and making mistakes all the way through, but gradually and incrementally improving. This need to be perfect all the time is a neurosis that our society needs to lose be…

We -- as a huge generalization -- also need to get better at asking for help. :-)

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

#306

Post by jimzvz » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 9:58 AM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #299

SkyMarshal wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bit of feedback on your site: 1. Don't call your blog "Poop". You're better than that. I know it's an attempt at being clever/sardonic/wry/whatever, but keep in mind tone and nuance don't convey well on the internet. At best it's self-depreciating but not in a good way. 2. On your About page, that you link prominently on your home page, don't then tell people it's none of their business and call them "rude". You in…

[deleted]

Personally, I liked your page and I am more likely to return to it than the usual self-important stuff floating around.

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

#307

Post by jimzvz » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 10:35 AM UTC

ceol wrote: post #269

eieio wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I can tell this is an account that was created entirely to post negative responses in this thread. How sad. (it was created 1 hour ago and the only comments from the account are negative posts about the article: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=petea ) To me it just confirms what the GP said: plenty of bruised egos in this thread.

These guys tend to come out of the woodwork when the focus of the article is of a certain gender, if you catch my drift.

With stories like this, I have found it to be the opposite. People that would usually question this, won't because they are terrified of being called sexist which is (exactly what you have done and) one of those things that hangs around you and can ruin your career very quickly.

This style of marketing is becoming very popular. The young, disadvantaged, novice, whatever does something extraordinary through sheer brilliance and dedication [1][2][3] and when their claims don't really match reality [4], nobody cares. The marketing has already succeeded. It is exactly the kind of marketing that is taylor made for social media and if we don't want to be inundated with it in the future, we need to question it every time it appears so that only the truly deserving reap its benefits. Extraordinary claims (should) require extraordinary evidence.

[1] - http://gigaom.com/2011/12/13/meet-the-internets-newest-boy-g...

[2] - http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/22/18-year-old-invents-unde...

[3] - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2335195/Meet-Madis...

[4] - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-17-year-old-yahoo-paid-30...

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

#308

Post by nakedrobot2 » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 10:36 AM UTC

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…

That was a study. And I understand perfectly.

However. The typewriter factory output and productivity in the soviet union was also measured solely by weight. This did not fare so well. :-)

Thankfully this ceramics teacher didn't run an entire industry of a global superpower :-)

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

#309

Post by epo » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 10:37 AM UTC

benblack wrote: post #175

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…

Another possible explanation is that she is intelligent and motivated and you are an asshole.

The thing is, these spiteful naysayers are talking about her, nobody is talking about them, and probably never will.

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

#310

Post by styrmis » Thu, Jul 25, 2013, 11:03 AM UTC

This is really great! There are quite possibly many better ways to spend 180 days if you wanted to make money (#1 would probably be completing every Rails tutorial available) but I don't think that is important here. Rather, I find her approach inspiring and it's something that can be applied to any endeavour.

One nice thing that she will have, even if she doesn't make it through the full 180 is a record of her earliest creations through to her latest. Like when keeping a journal she'll be able to refer to it when she's feeling low and see the progress she's made, and she'll have a record of what she's done that transcends her memory.

At my first job I was lucky enough to report directly to the Technical Director of the company who took the time to mentor me on what it means to be a good software engineer. The first thing he had me do is to keep an engineer's journal. The benefits of this would only become clear a few weeks down the line but clear it was: I would encounter a problem I knew I had solved before but couldn't quite recall the solution to; I would flip back to find my notes and there it would be. Fast forward a few months, then a year and the value received from this simple act of keeping an organised journal far exceeded my expectations.

I have since kept the habit going but I feel that more can be done here. On one level you can keep notes for yourself and improve your own productivity. A level up would be to write those notes up on an internal wiki. One level up further and you've polished them into material you can publish to a wider community. One level up again you can inspire others to do the same through your efforts. One such effort that I have seen (outside of Jennifer's) that I think is completely worth anyone's time to explore is Journey of an Absolute Rookie: Paintings and Sketches (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=870), 10 full years of recorded progress of a beginning artist that blew my mind. Warning: you may lose a lot of time to that forum thread!

There is something beautiful and powerful in things that have been worked on and tended to for years, things that cannot be rushed no matter what: the only way to have 10 years of recorded progress today is to have started 10 years ago and to have kept it up for the duration. What a present to give to yourself!