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

blog.jenniferdewalt.com

341–350 of 383 posts

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

#342
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…

This feels similar to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) where people commit to writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I've finished it a handful of times, and after a few attempts and some post-November polish, my output could now be mistaken for a coherent work of fiction in the English language.

didn't know about that - signed up! thanks!

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

#343
Inspiring. I definitely have a tendency to try to do everything at once n my private projects. I'm using 2 week deadlines to help me keep focus, but after those two weeks, I've got a few features of the project, not the entire thing.

Getting a finished thing out the door every day would be a tremendous challenge. With my background, I should easily be able to do a single website in a single day, but I don't think I've ever done that (I've done it in 3 days once).

Maybe I'll give this a try. Maybe just for two weeks. 8 simple but finished sites.

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

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, thank you. It wasn't obvious from my post, but I'm not against having fun, per se. Rather, I'm talking about drifting aimlessly, with no clear direction or purpose. And that direction or purpose doesn't have to be work related, or even creative. I have a lot of respect for people who make their families the center of their lives, for example.

Well that's nice for you. Maybe God will come down one of these days and tell everyone their Purpose. Except, no, wait, not gonna happen, so show some respect for the existentially purposeless, please.

That's the most lovely and exciting thing about life! No one will ever tell you your purpose so you're free to pick your own. You can have any purpose you want, you can freely choose! Not only that but you can change it anytime you want so no need to feel trapped either. My grandmother is one of my role models, after being a housewife her entire life she started writing in her late 60's and became a successful author. It's never too late =)

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

#345
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You basically need to be saving 33% of your take home salary. As a rule of thumb you shouldn't be spending more than a third of take-home on your housing. That leaves you with 33% for your cost of living. To see how that breaks down in "real-money", the take-home of an average CS graduate working at a typical large company in a developer role in London would be around 20k. So that would be around £550/month (£6600/ye…

Except that after tax and council tax, and energy bills and phone bill (internet and mobile), there is no way you would have that £6.6k in London. It'd be possible in another part of the UK maybe, but not trivial by any means.

Your crazy if you think you can't get a flat-share in london including bills for £6.6k. Literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people are spending less than that.

Council tax doesn't increase with the number of people in a flat (>1), so when you're sharing the price for that goes down dramatically. You could easily reduce your spending in other categories as well if you wanted to spend more on rental (i.e use busses rather than the tube).

Gumtree currently lists 19k flatshares below the £125/week mark:

http://www.gumtree.com/search?property_room_type=&property_t...

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

#346
post #325
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 13 types of people in the world. Your assignment is to figure out what they are and turn in a 10-12 page essay describing them by Monday. Class dismissed.

Hah! I am one of you guys but for a moment, just zoom out from the conversation a bit and look at it from the perspective of someone not like us(hackers/geeks). One of those classic Penny - Sheldon conversations.

Am I on reddit?

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

#347
post #314
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.

15 minutes per day is not long enough for effective learning. I think you'd be better off with 1 hour 3x per week for a similar time investment - especially when you take into account setup time and context switching.

That's true enough if it's a straight choice between those two scenarios. But it's a quirk of human nature that if you try and do something 3 times a week you're less likely to stick to it than doing something every day without fail. If it's only 3 times a week then it's easy to say to yourself "I'll leave it until tomorrow".

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

#348
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>saving 6 months worth of expenses on a tech salary when you have no dependants is trivial I have no dependants, I am 25 and I would love to be earning the kind of money in my tech job that made saving 6 months worth of expenses "trivial". Where are these jobs and how can I get one?

You basically need to be saving 33% of your take home salary. As a rule of thumb you shouldn't be spending more than a third of take-home on your housing. That leaves you with 33% for your cost of living. To see how that breaks down in "real-money", the take-home of an average CS graduate working at a typical large company in a developer role in London would be around 20k. So that would be around £550/month (£6600/ye…

> so a shared flat in a cheap-to-average part of town.

mind sharing the cheap-to-average parts of town? I am just curious how far out they are. thank you.

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

#349
post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Cooool. Oddly, Keller was the person who sprang to mind for me too. If you do this, definitely blog it and let me know - hughhancock on Twitter - I'd love to read about how it goes.

> Oddly, Keller was the person who sprang to mind for me too.

Then you will probably enjoy http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.co.uk/ whose author made every single recipe in the French Laundry Cookbook. (Good writing, too.)

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

#350

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…

As if you couldn't improve your skills everyday 9 to 5...
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