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So let's see her repository (https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt). This girl not only became a competent

by petea 13y ago

So let's see her repository (https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt 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 Rails perfectly. She not only grasped to use MVC perfectly, but also organized asset codes perfectly in like 50 days. I forgot to mention that she knew Rails from like day 1. Additionally, she knew better to hide sensitive information about secret tokens for maybe AWS in the config folder and other Rails environment info. Really? Is Hacker News this gullible? If you really want to see what actual beginner struggle with for 10 hours a day, go take a look at StackOverflow. Beginners are struggling for hours to create hoverover effects and persistent footer.

hkmurakami 13y ago
that being said her little pages are great to inspire a budding web programmer.
- petea 13y ago
  You betcha. She's gonna get book deals and invitations to talk at conferences in no time with this internet theatrical.
eieio 13y ago
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 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=petea) To me it just confirms what the GP said: plenty of bruised egos in this thread.
- petea 13y ago
  I created a new account to avoid precisely people like you psychologizing libelously about who I am. I feel reassured that it was a good idea to create a new account.
  - rodgerd 13y ago
    It's interesting that you reach so quickly for the adjective "libellous" given the tenor of your comments and the insinuations therein. And, unlike the subject of the post, you don't even have the courage to stick your identity to your work.
    - hollerith 13y ago
      >you don't even have the courage to stick your identity to your work. Neither do you -- as far as I can tell by viewing your profile and googling on your user name.
  - ceol 13y ago
    Translation: "I know what I'm saying is coming from a place of extreme bitterness, but I don't want search results for my name showing these comments to my potential employers." If you're going out of your way to create a new account to voice your opinion, chances are your opinion is shit.
    - ShirtlessRod 13y ago
      > "If you're going out of your way to create a new account to voice your opinion, chances are your opinion is shit." That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Some opinions are more unpopular than others, and sometimes recipients of said opinion aren't as restrained as one would hope when they encounter an opinion they don't like.
- ceol 13y ago
  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.
  - jimzvz 13y ago
    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-genius/ http://gigaom.com/2011/12/13/meet-the-internets-newest-boy-g... [2] - http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/22/18-year-old-invents-under-30-second-phone-charger/ http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/22/18-year-old-invents-unde... [3] - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2335195/Meet-Madison-15-year-old-Houston-entrepreneur-set-teenage-millionaire-signing-deal-Macys-fish-flops.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2335195/Meet-Madis... [4] - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-17-year-old-yahoo-paid-30-million-did-not-build-his-startups-app-or-invent-its-technology-2013-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-17-year-old-yahoo-paid-30...
    - pessimizer 13y ago
      Is she selling something that I'm not aware of?
      - jimzvz 13y ago
        Herself, as most of us are. This kind of thing will make it a lot easier to get media attention for her projects like Grapefeed [1][2]. [1] - http://grapefeed.com http://grapefeed.com [2] - https://angel.co/grapefeed https://angel.co/grapefeed
- riquito 13y ago
  Attacking the person instead of his opinion is worse.
sillysaurus 13y ago
So she did some hand waving. So what? It's not a lie to say that she's teaching herself how to code. And at least she's doing something with her time.
Dn_Ab 13y ago
Not gullible, just giving her the benefit of the doubt. It could turn out that she had some guidance, or has worked with people (though not as a programmer) and is smart + good enough memory to osmos some good practices, or took some class a long time ago that stuck better than she thought. Perhaps she had a power up period of non committed grazing and chose day 1 as the for real now point. Or some combination of above. To be honest I don't care. She's done something few can: keeping to a goal when she could easily have slacked on sites like hacker news, completing something not at all trivial, doing it well and sharing it. How long she's been programming wouldn't move my opinion in any direction. And even if there is more to the story, I still accept her day 1 as valid. My least generous interpretation is she came with at most a scattered modicum of knowledge, gleaned from informal trifling and lacked confidence enough so, that saying she is new is a rounding error compared to how good she will get.
- goblin89 13y ago
  > It could turn out that she had some guidance Indeed. Not mentioning anyone doesn't mean she's working alone. It's possible that she uses some help. It's also possible that she works on her own. It's also possible that she's a fictional character (admittedly there isn't enough data proving otherwise). The idea itself is interesting regardless of the above. First thing that occurred to me is why don't I go for it myself. I'm still pondering that.
  - freyr 13y ago
    > It's also possible that she's a fictional character (admittedly there isn't enough data proving otherwise). She does have a Twitter that's been active for a few years, and doesn't give an indication that she has prior programming experience. This would be quite the long con.
    - XorNot 13y ago
      I've had a Twitter account for over a year and posted absolutely nothing to it. I wouldn't say "con", but I do find it implausible someone went from nothing to everything and was making full websites on day 1. I mean I've cranked out some personal web-apps over a weekend, but I usually spend the next week or so "fixing" them, which for me is how I learn - I have the framework of what I want to do, and then I figure out how to add more and more features until it's the streamlined experience I want it to be. But a ton of that time is just spending hours working out why things are the way they are.
jgs1 13y ago
I'll admit it, I'm skeptical. I'm also a bit jealous that I can't seem to find 10 spare minutes a day for learning. Some quick internet sleuthing led me to https://angel.co/grapefeed https://angel.co/grapefeed which appears to show that she's the co-founder of a social-sharing website that just happens to be written in Rails. If that's the case, then she likely has access to the other co-founder/Rails developer. Not to take anything away from her work, but it doesn't seem quite the same to me as the "One day I woke up and decided to learn web development on my own" tone that I took away from the blog post.
ceol 13y ago
In case anyone misses my other reply to this troll, her initial commit[0] was the default Rails app, which most any newbie can get up on GitHub in a single day. She didn't even touch the app/ directory, where all the Rails-specific code lives, until two months later.[1] Please, no one believe this jerk. [0]: https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/tree/258e91c40f9fe313788175ac667f814759d705e1 https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/tree/258e91c40f... [1]: https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/commit/c0d02c8cee3358839801b19933328bf3f24f7ea6#app https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/commit/c0d02c8c...
freyr 13y ago
She says she works in a shared developer space. She's also co-founding a site with an experienced developer. It's quite possible that one of these developers helped set up the back end. How would this detract from the front end work that she's done and put on display? It's quite clear, at least to me, that her effort has been focused on the content of the 180 pages, rather than the back end work, which to my knowledge, she hasn't taken credit for. And really? Is your ego that fragile that you're desperately struggling to discredit a random person on the Internet?
nknighthb 13y ago
After 1000 hours with Google, all of those things are completely plausible. Moreso if you have a mentor to turn to. In fact, I would think that if you haven't reached that level of basic competence after 1000 hours, you're probably a pretty slow learner, or just not getting programming. I was maybe 40-80 hours into finally putting serious effort into programming when I started playing with hand-crafted ELF binaries and trying to beat GCC at optimizing simple routines (never had any real trouble with pointers again after that; assembly makes it all make sense). Hoverover effects are not the sort of thing I would have been struggling with. Incidentally, she's probably spent many more hours coding in the last six months than I have in the past year, and it's nominally my full-time job. It's amazing how little actual code you can end up writing as a professional software engineer.

by petea 13y ago

hkmurakami 13y ago

that being said her little pages are great to inspire a budding web programmer.

petea 13y ago
You betcha. She's gonna get book deals and invitations to talk at conferences in no time with this internet theatrical.

eieio 13y ago

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 https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=petea) To me it just confirms what the GP said: plenty of bruised egos in this thread.

petea 13y ago
I created a new account to avoid precisely people like you psychologizing libelously about who I am. I feel reassured that it was a good idea to create a new account.
- rodgerd 13y ago
  It's interesting that you reach so quickly for the adjective "libellous" given the tenor of your comments and the insinuations therein. And, unlike the subject of the post, you don't even have the courage to stick your identity to your work.
  - hollerith 13y ago
    >you don't even have the courage to stick your identity to your work. Neither do you -- as far as I can tell by viewing your profile and googling on your user name.
- ceol 13y ago
  Translation: "I know what I'm saying is coming from a place of extreme bitterness, but I don't want search results for my name showing these comments to my potential employers." If you're going out of your way to create a new account to voice your opinion, chances are your opinion is shit.
  - ShirtlessRod 13y ago
    > "If you're going out of your way to create a new account to voice your opinion, chances are your opinion is shit." That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Some opinions are more unpopular than others, and sometimes recipients of said opinion aren't as restrained as one would hope when they encounter an opinion they don't like.
ceol 13y ago
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.
- jimzvz 13y ago
  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-genius/ http://gigaom.com/2011/12/13/meet-the-internets-newest-boy-g... [2] - http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/22/18-year-old-invents-under-30-second-phone-charger/ http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/05/22/18-year-old-invents-unde... [3] - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2335195/Meet-Madison-15-year-old-Houston-entrepreneur-set-teenage-millionaire-signing-deal-Macys-fish-flops.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2335195/Meet-Madis... [4] - http://www.businessinsider.com/the-17-year-old-yahoo-paid-30-million-did-not-build-his-startups-app-or-invent-its-technology-2013-4 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-17-year-old-yahoo-paid-30...
  - pessimizer 13y ago
    Is she selling something that I'm not aware of?
    - jimzvz 13y ago
      Herself, as most of us are. This kind of thing will make it a lot easier to get media attention for her projects like Grapefeed [1][2]. [1] - http://grapefeed.com http://grapefeed.com [2] - https://angel.co/grapefeed https://angel.co/grapefeed
riquito 13y ago
Attacking the person instead of his opinion is worse.

sillysaurus 13y ago

So she did some hand waving. So what? It's not a lie to say that she's teaching herself how to code. And at least she's doing something with her time.

Dn_Ab 13y ago

Not gullible, just giving her the benefit of the doubt. It could turn out that she had some guidance, or has worked with people (though not as a programmer) and is smart + good enough memory to osmos some good practices, or took some class a long time ago that stuck better than she thought. Perhaps she had a power up period of non committed grazing and chose day 1 as the for real now point. Or some combination of above. To be honest I don't care. She's done something few can: keeping to a goal when she could easily have slacked on sites like hacker news, completing something not at all trivial, doing it well and sharing it. How long she's been programming wouldn't move my opinion in any direction. And even if there is more to the story, I still accept her day 1 as valid. My least generous interpretation is she came with at most a scattered modicum of knowledge, gleaned from informal trifling and lacked confidence enough so, that saying she is new is a rounding error compared to how good she will get.

goblin89 13y ago
> It could turn out that she had some guidance Indeed. Not mentioning anyone doesn't mean she's working alone. It's possible that she uses some help. It's also possible that she works on her own. It's also possible that she's a fictional character (admittedly there isn't enough data proving otherwise). The idea itself is interesting regardless of the above. First thing that occurred to me is why don't I go for it myself. I'm still pondering that.
- freyr 13y ago
  > It's also possible that she's a fictional character (admittedly there isn't enough data proving otherwise). She does have a Twitter that's been active for a few years, and doesn't give an indication that she has prior programming experience. This would be quite the long con.
  - XorNot 13y ago
    I've had a Twitter account for over a year and posted absolutely nothing to it. I wouldn't say "con", but I do find it implausible someone went from nothing to everything and was making full websites on day 1. I mean I've cranked out some personal web-apps over a weekend, but I usually spend the next week or so "fixing" them, which for me is how I learn - I have the framework of what I want to do, and then I figure out how to add more and more features until it's the streamlined experience I want it to be. But a ton of that time is just spending hours working out why things are the way they are.

jgs1 13y ago

I'll admit it, I'm skeptical. I'm also a bit jealous that I can't seem to find 10 spare minutes a day for learning. Some quick internet sleuthing led me to https://angel.co/grapefeed https://angel.co/grapefeed which appears to show that she's the co-founder of a social-sharing website that just happens to be written in Rails. If that's the case, then she likely has access to the other co-founder/Rails developer. Not to take anything away from her work, but it doesn't seem quite the same to me as the "One day I woke up and decided to learn web development on my own" tone that I took away from the blog post.

ceol 13y ago

In case anyone misses my other reply to this troll, her initial commit[0] was the default Rails app, which most any newbie can get up on GitHub in a single day. She didn't even touch the app/ directory, where all the Rails-specific code lives, until two months later.[1] Please, no one believe this jerk. [0]: https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/tree/258e91c40f9fe313788175ac667f814759d705e1 https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/tree/258e91c40f... [1]: https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/commit/c0d02c8cee3358839801b19933328bf3f24f7ea6#app https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/commit/c0d02c8c...

freyr 13y ago

She says she works in a shared developer space. She's also co-founding a site with an experienced developer. It's quite possible that one of these developers helped set up the back end. How would this detract from the front end work that she's done and put on display? It's quite clear, at least to me, that her effort has been focused on the content of the 180 pages, rather than the back end work, which to my knowledge, she hasn't taken credit for. And really? Is your ego that fragile that you're desperately struggling to discredit a random person on the Internet?

nknighthb 13y ago

After 1000 hours with Google, all of those things are completely plausible. Moreso if you have a mentor to turn to. In fact, I would think that if you haven't reached that level of basic competence after 1000 hours, you're probably a pretty slow learner, or just not getting programming. I was maybe 40-80 hours into finally putting serious effort into programming when I started playing with hand-crafted ELF binaries and trying to beat GCC at optimizing simple routines (never had any real trouble with pointers again after that; assembly makes it all make sense). Hoverover effects are not the sort of thing I would have been struggling with. Incidentally, she's probably spent many more hours coding in the last six months than I have in the past year, and it's nominally my full-time job. It's amazing how little actual code you can end up writing as a professional software engineer.