20 ms·

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

624 points by jenniferDewalt 13y ago

jorgeleo 13y ago
"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 http://www.infoq.com/author/Rich-Hickey), try reading and exercising data structures (b-tree, rb-tree, bitmaps, and a long etc), try different problems like database reporting and read "Code Complete" AND "The Nature of Code". You are up to a great start, but got a long way to go to call it "Comprehensive" Broad foundation? not really, no. Just today's popular areas of front end development. And today's popular is actually a very small area, common and with a lot of hype, but just a relatively small section of front end development Great project... keep going, there is much to discover!
- DanielStraight 13y ago
  I don't mean to nitpick, but I think you misread. She specifically said it hasn't given her a comprehensive understanding.
  - statusgraph 13y ago
    Haha, not sure that qualifies as a "nit" given that it invalidates their point entirely ... :)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- jacquesm 13y ago
  Not it has not, yes it has. Web development is for many intents and purposes now the equivalent of software development. That there are other areas of interest (embedded, systems software, application development and so on) does not detract from the fact that if you want to do software development web development is more than likely your point of entry and it's a field wide enough and deep enough that you could easily lose several careers in it. So for her it is a broad foundation to jump off of, more so than assembly language programming or toying around with clojure.
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    +1 to this, while some folks seem rather dismissive of web site design as "programming" (and I did back in the HTML4 days but these days, its very much a program) here is someone who has looked at this particular aspect and poked into a bunch of different areas. And that is all good. So much better to have 6 months experience building web sites before you say "I'll just make a career in building web sites" :-)
  - sharkweek 13y ago
    I hate the argument that you have to dive into some complex language to really "understand" programming -- Some people just like to build stuff; much akin to someone who might just want to change the oil in their car. You would never ask them to build an entire transmission for their first project.
    - ionforce 13y ago
      Sure, you don't "have to" but you most likely do. To understand something implies some grasp of scope and size. And if you're continually working on toy problems, you'll never encounter problems of the appropriate scope or issues of scale. So that's kind of what people mean when they say you need to work with something complex. To understand a complex system is to know which parts are important and which aren't and at which levels of examination.
  - jorgeleo 13y ago
    I post one answer to all the posts
- pseudometa 13y ago
  Remember you told me to tell you when you were acting 'rudely and insensitively'? Remember that? You're doing it right now.
- carter770 13y ago
  What the heck are you talking about? C'mon man...
- mseebach 13y ago
  That's pretty elitist. You seem to confuse "coder" with "computer scientist" or "software engineer". As the ecosystem of toolsets, frameworks and libraries mature, the number of opportunities for well-informed "commoners" with the right motivation to make computers do what they want them to increases violently. Lemma 1: Simple CRUD-style web-apps and scripts can be very useful. Lemma 2: Before-mentioned tools can be build to a perfectly serviceable standard without a comprehensive understanding of computer science. These two combined suggests that the author can indeed be a perfectly productive and effective creator of computer programs. I see no reason "coder" isn't a perfectly good title for such a person.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > That's pretty elitist. I think its accurate, not "elitist". > You seem to confuse "coder" with "computer scientist" or "software engineer". The claim was that the experience provided a broad foundation with regard to "software development". That is a broad field. Lots of experience in CRUD-style web apps isn't a broad base for "software development" generally, its a narrow (but potentially deep within that narrow domain) base. That's not to say its not a useful base, but its not broad. Also note that the response in GP to the claim of a broad base -- while pointing out that it was not broad -- also wasn't judgemental in way which justifies the claim of elitism. It explicitly recognized the project as great and encouraged continuing from there. > These two combined suggests that the author can indeed be a perfectly productive and effective creator of computer programs. I see no reason "coder" isn't a perfectly good title for such a person. Nothing in GP was contrary to these points, so you seem to be arguing against things no one said.
  - jorgeleo 13y ago
    I post one answer to all the posts
- tmimicus 13y ago
  I don't usually comment... ...but man, you are a jerk. She's becoming a coder, not a computer scientist. And calling her work 'niche', then linking to a guy raving about Datomic, something that is even MORE niche? Man... I'm wasting my time calling you out.
  - ars_technician 13y ago
    It can be hard to see if you spend a lot of time in web dev, but he is 100% correct. You confused about what computer scientists are. Think about this, some of the best computer scientists in the world would have difficulty passing fizzbuzz, let alone engineer large projects. Computer science != software engineering What she did is a niche, but linking to another niche is the whole point, not a counter-argument to what he said. The idea is to expand your view of programming, not spit on things that aren't in your field.
  - jorgeleo 13y ago
    I post one answer to all the posts
- furyofantares 13y ago
  It might not be a "broad foundation" but I think it is a "broad foundation to jump off of". The foundation I jumped off of was being able to edit numbers in GORILLAS.BAS to change the size of the explosions.
- huu 13y ago
  She said that it -has not- given her a comprehensive understanding of software development, not that it has. Also agree with the other comments, this is pretty elitist. There's just no reason to comment and say, "well I'm not impressed".
  - jorgeleo 13y ago
    Except that I said I am. I post one answer to all the posts
- jorgeleo 13y ago
  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 pads in my car. Then I decided that I was going to change the brake pads in 100 different car brands and models, so I did. Can I call my self a car mechanic? Nope, not even a brake specialist because I am forgetting a lot of other pieces and mechanism. But I can make a career out of it, fast brake maintenance. Now I see someone that has the stamina, the admirable dedication to actually go through it, so I see someone that has the ability to go much further than the average guy. Tease her, give her some pointers and directions, if she likes challenges, challenge her to go more out there. It is easy to sit back and clap at an accomplishment, and is no small accomplishment in this case. But she is thirsty for more, challenge her to more!!!... unless you don't know where that more is because the belief that web development is all there is to it Some areas of web design is programming... JavaScript, server side, and a long etc certainly are. HTML is document painting. It is important, it requires some serious skills, skills that for that matter I don't have, but HTML is not programming because there are no conditionals, no loops. The basics building blocks in programming are those. If this hurts, I am honestly sorry, but you have 2 options, either react in anger (which is a secondary feeling, and you need to see what feeling is the primary), or research what else is there and maybe you will learn a thing or 2. HTML plus JavaScript it is programming, HTML and some CSS can be stretched to call it programming Elitist? Confusing with "Computer Scientist"? I was just giving some pointers into other areas of software development. I did not mention Discrete mathematics, set theory, compiler construction, semantic analysis, etc, etc, etc. Those are areas for a Computer Scientist, and putting her against that can become discouraging instead of challenging, but then again, another computer scientist would have known that, wouldn't he? If all that you see about Rich is Datatomic and Clojure, then you are missing a lot. Simple vs. Easy is more what I am talking about, or functions as the thing that make data time travel, aha! that can change the way you think about software development. That is programming BBQ, not HTML salad. If you don't know what I am talking about... Google meet my friend here, friend meet Google. If there is something where she is above is that she took a challenge and meet it What the original article did is nothing short of amazing... so much accomplished, so much stamina, so much potential. She claim that she wants to jump off... well, I mention a few pools where she can dive in And finally... what is the difference between a jerk and tough love? can you recognize when you see it? There is really no absolute answer, but if you write it and read it back, you have a chance to see the color of the glasses that are in front of your eyes
baby 13y ago
This is incredible. I've been coding for more than 10 years and have been going incredibly slow, only coding when having a good idea. I just wish I had the time to do this to learn node.js and backbone...
- dmak 13y ago
  I learned that in life, you only don't have time if you don't make time for it. Don't take it the wrong way; For all I know, you might be saving the world behind the scenes.
- Ixiaus 13y ago
  There's always time! Wake up an hour earlier, get more disciplined, stay up an hour later, reorganize a weekend to squeeze in a few more hours there. If you truly want to learn something, you can make the time for it. I went from being a PHP programmer, to learning Scheme, to learning Erlang, to learning Haskell, to now looping back and leveling up on my Mathematics education and writing abilities (all while holding full-time jobs, building a startup, etc...) Next up is learning how to design websites artistically (I'm not a designer!). Learning how to sketch, combine colors, make vector graphics, etc...
jonahx 13y ago
This is really impressive, not just the speed and quality of the learning, but the stamina!
bjpcjp 13y ago
Congrats to Jennifer. Much respect.
andyl 13y ago
Her ability to attract attention was remarkable. She should become a marketer or spokesperson, not a coder.
- mattdeboard 13y ago
  Why? This is an incredible non-sequitir.
- JPKab 13y ago
  Your ability to be a dick is remarkable. You should be a mall cop, not a coder.
  - antimagic 13y ago
    Careful champ - that was not necessarily a snarky comment. A more charitable reading would be that the andyl thinks that the OP could make more money / have a better career by focusing on what is clearly an intuitive gift that is highly valued in the employment market...
    - ritchiea 13y ago
      The phrase "not a coder" at the end of the comment signals snark pretty heavily. Suggesting that someone who spent the last 180 days coding should not be a coder is a very rude and dismissive. The OP could have easily praised her marketing savvy without suggesting she should not be a coder.
      - ars_technician 13y ago
        >The OP could have easily praised her marketing savvy without suggesting she should not be a coder. If someone is training to become a janitor and they have excellent marketing skills, it would not be rude to say he/she/it should not be a janitor and should be a marketer instead. You are trying so desperately to be offended by something that doesn't have to be offensive.
GuiA 13y ago
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 a tech company). If you're a programmer, think about following a similar, inverted journey: spend 180 days learning how to paint, or how to play the guitar, or writing poems- delivering a concrete outcome every day (and log it in a journal so you can trace back your progress; making that journal public, like she did, is optional but has benefits). I have many programmer friends (and myself!) who complain that they cannot draw/write/paint/cook for nothing. Those skills, just like programming, can be learned- and while becoming a master at any takes years, if not decades, learning the basics and being "functional" with any of them is a matter of a couple of months. Of course, taking 6 months to do just that is a bit radical (but, if you're young and in tech, totally doable- saving 6 months worth of expenses on a tech salary when you have no dependents is trivial) - but if you take 1 day a week, you'll only be 7x slower. If you take 2 hours a day instead of 8, you'll only be 4x slower. If you can work part time to keep a minimal income while working on becoming a master painter on the side, only 2x slower (of course you can nitpick with those simplifications, but the core idea is there - if you spend 2 hours a day learning the guitar, you'll go from total novice to enlightened beginner pretty fast). Thanks to the internet, it's now really hard to not find resources about learning anything- there are sites and forums and youtube videos on everything. Additionally, never underestimate the power of your social circle - trading skills is very fulfilling. (for example, my girlfriend's sister's bf is in a band, signed to a label, etc. and loves video games. He'd like to learn how to program basic little games, and I'm the only programmer he knows. That's pretty great, because I've been dying to get a talented guitar instructor). And learning those skills can make you even more valuable professionally- if you make entertainment apps, learning an instrument will allow you to compose your own music. If you're a freelance web developer, learning graphic design will allow you to build higher quality products and charge much much more. If you like to program video games, learning how to draw will enable you to design your own assets.
- JPKab 13y ago
  This. I'm incredibly impressed with the way she dove in and just started building stuff. I love that.
adt2bt 13y ago
Congratulations, Jennifer. I really appreciate the lessons learned here. Like my favorite college professor (and I'm sure many others, as it is a fairly popular quote) would say: Sometimes you have something that looks really ugly and gross. You can liken it to having to eat a slimy, bumpy frog. The best way to eat the frog, is just to swallow it. Once you get in the habit of swallowing your frogs, the rest of your day looks great. I think I'm going to apply the 180 small projects in 180 days to many different ideas. For example, I enjoy cooking. I will probably start a project to cook one meal from every country on earth every day for ~180 (196) days. I've done it so far on weekends, but I think speeding the tempo will help significantly. It forces me to practice, saves me $$ I would otherwise spend eating out, and grows my spice cabinet. Who knows, I might continue it with bread, websites, meditation, or whatever else.
- DanielStraight 13y ago
  If you haven't seen it yet, you'd probably appreciate this (or perhaps this was the inspiration for your comment in the first place): http://globaltableadventure.com/ http://globaltableadventure.com/ Basically, someone doing the cooking thing, but on a weekly basis. She only has 6 weeks left. Pretty awesome site.
  - adt2bt 13y ago
    I had not seen it! Thank you for sharing. This is pretty awesome.
- jenniferDewalt 13y ago
  I love the idea of exploring the cuisine of other countries in a systematic way! Besides being super delicious, what a fun way to share a learning experience with family and friends.
- thenomad 13y ago
  I linked this above, but it's so directly relevant to your idea that I thought I should re-link it here: check out the Julie/Julia project, which was one woman doing approximately the same thing with cooking, albeit on a more focused topic: http://web.archive.org/web/20021217011704/http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html http://web.archive.org/web/20021217011704/http://blogs.salon... (As a side note, I love this idea, and would cheerfully jump into doing it myself were I not already rather overcommitted... From having cooked various world food banquets, I can tell you that you'll learn a HELL of a lot very quickly from doing this. Great idea: blog it!)
luisehk 13y ago
Wow, this is the total opposite of me. I just spent weeks setting up the perfect development environment, instead of getting actual work done. I need to rethink the way I work.
- codereflection 13y ago
  I would have done the same thing. Her ability to keep focused sends to be pretty incredible.
- joshlegs 13y ago
  Whhen i first started coding, i thought i had to go revisit all my math classes that i had forgotten. Still i have that same problem. When picking up a new api or something, instead of learning just how to use it quickly, i end up trying to learn a lot of its nuances first :S
- ianstallings 13y ago
  You are getting work done ;). Getting used to tools is what you are both doing. Just differently. But yes, dig in now!
- sker 13y ago
  I feel you there buddy, gotta get the whole (yeoman, bower, grunt, angularjs, batarang, postman, karma, typescript, git, git deployment, ci, visual studio support, assorted js librariers) setup ready to kick some ass.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- FLUX-YOU 13y ago
  Sounds like you already have a job in development. I wouldn't worry too much if that's the case. :)
BigChiefSmokem 13y ago
Okay now build an e-commerce web site that can handle thousands of transactions on a daily basis and can talk to internal systems like CRM, warehousing, and manufacturing. I'll be honest here. Coding was fun when I was young, but now I code for the money. So stay young Ms. Dewalt - don't become a cynical bastard like me (us?).
- sehr 13y ago
  Evidence of why I tend to lurk on HackerNews. Some of you lot are insufferable sometimes.
  - joshbert 13y ago
    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.
    - jmagoon 13y ago
      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.
- mseebach 13y ago
  How about no? It's great that you've built a webshop handling thousands of transactions a day (it's cute, you say that almost like "thousands per days" is a big number), but it's not like that is some universal rite of acceptance into the ranks of those worthy to write code. Maybe you should try to address the fact that you don't enjoy your job rather than projecting your misery onto the rest of us? I, for one, throughly enjoy making computers do things to solve problems (of which coding is a component).
- jenniferDewalt 13y ago
ryanthejuggler 13y ago
I know I'm changing this by posting, but heh. http://i.imgur.com/4s4tlwr.png http://i.imgur.com/4s4tlwr.png
Tycho 13y ago
I found learning to code a little like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle. You can grab one tile and study it very carefully, but it’s not going to tell you very much about where it goes or how the whole puzzle looks. You’ve got to start collecting a bunch of tiles and piecing them together for you start to get the big picture. This is quite interesting. I think I do this sometimes. When I started working in finance and I remember getting really confused about how people use the word 'exposure'. Looking back it feels like I obsessed too much over one piece of the jigsaw.
brickcap 13y ago
Fantastic commitment. Gives me inspiration to roll up my sleeves and start my next project.
djvu9 13y ago
This reminds me of a recent story on China's twitter alike website. A girl (actually a model) decided to start learning python. She kept posting progress, asking questions and sometimes a photo of her. A ton of coders followed, gave advice and answered the questions everyday. One month or two later the girl became someone's girl friend. He is probably the only non-coder guy among those followers.
nachteilig 13y ago
The idea of more fine art people moving into coding is definitely exciting for me. I've been trying to encourage my friends in the sciences to learn code too. We'll definitely all benefit from the expanded perspectives.
jjoe 13y ago
I'm reluctant to reference a scene from a film because it seems too cliche. But it's analogically relevant so here it is (Matrix: Neo vs Morpheus): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j82GKTgVDkw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j82GKTgVDkw (check the relevant quotes down below) it's relevant because what we do on the Web is virtual. What we create for others to experience and use can seem magical. Every time someone creates a new product, a previously unthought-of experience, we're baffled, in awe. We're in shock even though we live a bit at the forefront of development (relatively). We feel empowered knowing that the Web is the one place we can potentially be Batman. What she set herself to do is grandiose and beyond what she thought to be capable of doing. Yet she shook off the negative inner chatter and kept trucking along. So I think there's something positive to learn from this for all of us. The work we do as product developers will always have a mundane or labor intensive component. This is where most of us take the "perseverance cap" off and start procrastinating. Not all the work is going to be fun and exciting. But the reward is awesome and packed with a healthy dose of endorphin. Relevant quotes: * Don't think you are; know you are! * Come on! Stop trying to hit me and hit me! * do you think that's air you're breathing now? * Do you really think me being strong or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place?
reikonomusha 13y ago
I 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, always trivial roadblocks that the student seems to hit. My brother, who is a very smart person, was beginning to learn Python, and going through Codecademy. He must have spent at least tens of hours on it. The simplest things he just didn't grok immediately. For example, the different between variables, strings, and symbols. He would type, for example: print hello world or name = john message = my name is + john That's only the beginning. The idea of data types, the concept that "truth" and "falsity" could be encapsulated in a manipulable piece of data called a "boolean" (which he would pronounce Boe Lean) were definitely not within arm's reach. Functions were even more troublesome. It wasn't just my brother. I was explaining to a friend, who is a very competent hardware guy, what a lambda function is. The idea that functions can be seen as data themselves. He eventually got it, but it took lots of explaining. And even after that, the small programs he wrote employing his newly found knowledge were riddled with bugs, formatting issues, style issues, and so on. It wasn't just my students, it was me as well. My first programs were something like 10 REM MY FIRST PROGRAM 20 PRINT "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" 30 INPUT N 40 PRINT "HELLO ", N 50 GOTO 10 In fact, this program didn't even work in whatever BASIC implementation I was using. I just didn't get why. It turns out I needed to add the '$' sign to my variables to denote that they're strings. When I was writing code for doing arbitrary precision arithmetic, I was representing the numbers as strings of digits: "12345". I was translating between digit characters and decimal value using the CHR and VAL functions of the language. When I was first introduced to ALLOCATE, typed arrays, etc. it simply did not click and took a while. Pointers, the heap, the stack, BYREF, BYVAL, FREE? If I haven't made the point clear, there are a lot of things even we professional programmers take for granted, and things that we have long forgotten were hard, which those starting out with programming have major issues with, and almost deny the possibility of making something substantial in even a single day. Since I regularly teach programming, I am constantly reminded of them. While I suppose it's possible to achieve the amazing feat that Jennifer claims on her own and without personal instruction, it just seems unlikely. If it's true, it's great for self-promotion of course, but I don't want it to give the aspiring programmer the idea that they should be able to reasonably accomplish the same things she did. What she accomplished wasn't just picking up programming, it was: * programming in multiple languages & paradigms * understanding how they relate to each other * setting up programming environments * setting up and understanding 3rd party frameworks and libraries * being able to effectively communicate with programmers * understanding source control and deployment and then a lot more application specific things. That is a really tall order. If the work was genuinely done by an artist with no technical background with little outside help, then I would consider achievement incredibly brilliant. If it was not—which is how I feel—then I think the audience deserves a bit of honesty.
marincounty 13y ago
I'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 we need to glamorize the things we learn in life: Coder=website developer, automotive technician=mechanic. I once hade a girlfriend refer to herself as a Professional Photographer, but she never took a picture without moving from the little square setting. She was beyond irritating at dinner. I appalaud this woman. I applaud the person who paid for the apartment. I'm still a bit skeptical though. I have a feeling she might have had a live in coach? I'm sorry, but I've met too many people who leave out details. As I once told a customer, I've never net a women who was interested in reballing a Nvida Chip in a faulty motherboard. Save, any masoginistic claims. It's more about our society, and the need, or quest for a title in life. "What do you do?" is played out, and trite. I've known peope who spend their whole life looking for a title. You will probably have many titles in life if you took a few chances. So if you ever bump into me in a bar please don't ask me, "What do you do?" I might respond by throwing up on your trendy Sneakers?
- BlackDeath3 13y ago
  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.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    "Coding" has history: http://catb.org/jargon/html/C/code.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/C/code.html code 2. v. To write code. In this sense, always refers to source code rather than compiled. “I coded an Emacs clone in two hours!” This verb is a bit of a cultural marker associated with the Unix and minicomputer traditions (and lately Linux); people within that culture prefer v. ‘code’ to v. ‘program’ whereas outside it the reverse is normally true.
SubuSS 13y ago
Very good stuff. Don't let up!
tomasien 13y ago
I think the coolest thing about watching the project is that some of the ideas are like, actually good ideas. Maybe not huge ideas, but they're good ideas. I especially like Open Note. I always thought the bottleneck for Jennifer would be thinking of 180 ideas in time to make them into websites, but nope!
- jenniferDewalt 13y ago
  I really like Open Note as well and it's definitely on the table for a more fleshed out reboot in the coming weeks. Toward the end of the project, I started having trouble coming up with ideas that I could do in just one day. I started getting really excited about building bigger, more involved projects. That's when I knew 180 days was exactly the right time-frame for the project.
ddoolin 13y ago
I seriously wish I could do this. Does she ever talk about how it's possible for her to afford to do this? 10 hours a day learning sounds great but really isn't feasible for (I'm guessing) a very large majority of people.
- dkokelley 13y ago
  One way I've heard personal/professional development described is as follows: "You have two jobs (three if you have a family). You put in ~40 hours/week for your employer, and ~20 hours/week for yourself. In those 20 hours, you work on yourself (both physically and mentally). Exercise, read books, learn new things, develop new skills, improve yourself. Ten hours per day is probably not realistic if you work full time (unless you can overlap your time somehow). An hour before and after work, along with some free time on the weekends should be enough to get started.
- jenniferDewalt 13y ago
  I saved up some money so I could take the time to learn to code full time. I'm single and I eat a lot of ramen noodles.
danso 13y ago
The fact that she achieved her goal is just amazing enough...but this quote from the OP leaves me even more awestruck: > Keep coding! The end of my 180 websites in 180 days project marks the beginning of the rest of my life as a coder. 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. I plan to work on a couple of more complex websites that take more than a day to complete. I know people who've taken a semester basic web dev class, built a few sites, and already think they've got a handle on things. Jennifer made so many things, in so many ways, that she's learned not just how to build websites, but that she still has a lot to learn. A really stellar example for web devs of all skill levels.
dpweb 13y ago
Dunno how good a coder she is, but she has it locked down as a marketer. How many HN #1s this woman has?!
petea 13y ago
I 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 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. --- Edit 1. While rereading this blog post, I found that she made the first simple Rails app on day 69. So who was it that set up all the Rails dev environment for her starting day 1. I don't understand why she still wouldn't disclose how someone else helped her.
- ag80 13y ago
  She mentions specifically the Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl. This tutorial has a section on creating secret tokens within the first three chapters (while leaving in-depth discussion of it for later chapters), and starts discussing concepts like MVC and setting up a development environment in the first chapter. I'm working through the same tutorial myself, so I see no reason to doubt that it is entirely possible to set up a rails dev environment and get started in a single day. I would also argue she is in fact disclosing how "someone else" helped her -- "...sites like Stack Overflow, MDN, CSS Tricks, blogs and demos. I also used some great online tutorials". Using these resources is to me no different than having your experienced developer friend sit next to you. Probably better, in some cases.
- ufmace 13y ago
  Most of that stuff really isn't that hard. I learned a bunch of that stuff on my own, and I've been spending less than 10 hours a week on it. Surf HN and a few Reddit boards related to coding and Rails, and you'll pick up stuff like that. I first read that the secret_token.rb file does not belong in source control in some thread on here or r/programming. Not that it would be that tough to figure out - the name kinda invites googling, where the first few results will tell you what you need to know.
onion2k 13y ago
The project was an awesome undertaking, and completing it successfully is brilliant. Jennifer clearly has an aptitude for taking an idea for a small website from conception to completion quickly. That's a heck of a skill. But it's not a skill that makes a good web developer. Web development is, in the most part, the easiest kind of development. In 15 years of doing this stuff I can state with some authority that 99% of websites are simple CRUD applications. Web development doesn't challenge your coding skills much. Occasionally it does, but only if you get in to either a product company or an agency that does fun things. Most don't. The most important skills for a web developer are the ability to talk to a client, see a good solution based on an existing platform (Wordpress, Magento, Pyro, Backbone, etc), and implement it in an organised and maintainable way. Skills most coders see as dull. Spend the next 180 days learning how to do the "boring" side of business analysis, project management, simple admin stuff and then you'll be a brilliant web developer. Most of the people in the industry are terrible at that stuff.
- enraged_camel 13y ago
  >>Web development is, in the most part, the easiest kind of development. In 15 years of doing this stuff I can state with some authority that 99% of websites are simple CRUD applications. Web development doesn't challenge your coding skills much. Occasionally it does, but only if you get in to either a product company or an agency that does fun things. Most don't. I understand what you're trying to say in your post as a whole, but I hate the part I quoted because it comes across as extremely elitist, so much so that it takes away from your overall message. It's sort of odd because it perpetuates the weird hierarchy within the software development industry, where assembly coders look down upon C developers, who look down upon C++ developers, who look down upon C# developers, who look down upon web developers, and so on.
- shubhamjain 13y ago
  >>>But it's not a skill that makes a good web developer. Web development is, in the most part, the easiest kind of development. In 15 years of doing this stuff I can state with some authority that 99% of websites are simple CRUD applications. Web development doesn't challenge your coding skills much. Occasionally it does, but only if you get in to either a product company or an agency that does fun things. Most don't. Quite baseless, actually. While you just think web development as general CRUD but there are many aspects of web development that are challenging. It might not challenge you for smart algorithms, low level optimizations, or a clever recursion but what about a elegant UI, thinking about user experience, optimizing server performance, reducing page load time and many more. Saying that "X programming is easy, real programming is Y" is a bit immature to be honest.
andrewhillman 13y ago
Give her some time and she will eventually create a simple app that blows up. Obviously, she is extremely disciplined, focused, creative and most importantly, she has a story (fully documented)... and the press eats this shit up.
contextual 13y ago
This is like watching some n0ob at the gym do warm up reps with my maximum weight. I'm impressed, inspired even, but also feeling like I'm underachieving. Good for her.
- ars_technician 13y ago
  So to continue the analogy, she will now get bored with it and move on to the next interesting thing. Don't feel bad unless she continues at that pace for the next 5 years. It's easy to be excited about something new. It's not so easy to be excited when you've picked all of the low hanging fruit and you have to do the dirty work for a living.
jsogarro 13y ago
Major props goes out to Jennifer. I agree. The best way to learn is to JFDI. Good stuff!
Bahamut 13y ago
I too have went a similar journey - I went from my first programming job as a junior frontend dev to senior frontend dev (with full stack capabilities) in ~10 months. I'm pretty happy to see that someone else has taken the initiative to learn & grow. Does it matter that she had help? No, the end goal is what matters. Some public acknowledgement would probably be good as a thanks to those who have helped her, but I don't view it as a huge deal - that is between her and them, and they are probably savvy enough to come forward if they want to.
- FLUX-YOU 13y ago
  If I may ask, what skills and how many projects did you have when you joined as a junior?
wellboy 13y ago
Awesome, someone needs to make 180 Android apps within 180 days now. :)
- gohrt 13y ago
  https://code.google.com/p/android-30days-apps/ https://code.google.com/p/android-30days-apps/
scriptstar 13y ago
Jennifer, did you documented your journey? It could out sell some of the big names in the training niche. If you documented then would you like to share that with HN community please? Thanks.
- arvindravi 13y ago
  She did: http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/archive http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/archive
  - scriptstar 13y ago
    Thanks. When she was at 115 days, she wrote a blog post and it pretty much summarises her learning path. http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/post/56319597560/im-learning-to-code-by-building-180-websites-in-180 http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/post/56319597560/im-learning-...
thenomad 13y ago
One quote springs to mind, given Jennifer's background as an artist, and the fact that key to her success has been finishing things and releasing them to the world, over and over again: "Real artists ship." - Steve Jobs
rzc 13y ago
I would encourage her to try things other than web development. Make a desktop application, or a program in C, or do some performance coding on an embedded system, or write a webserver from scratch, or wrestle with writing a program with multiple threads. You might say this is too much to expect from a beginner, but no one would have said that 20 years ago. It only seems hard because of how easy web development is today. Nowadays we have so much scaffolding to work from that it's easy to mistake results for software engineering skill. Many of these projects are mash-ups. I do admire her dedication, it's a rare quality, but I can't help but think this is the easy way out. Or maybe I'm just getting old.
- Tichy 13y ago
  It's getting difficult to justify coding anything else, though.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    No it isn't.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      There are a lot of things to do that have value that aren't web. There are a lot of things to do that you can be paid for that aren't web. There is some overlap. If it's hard to justify working on any of these things, the parent is going to have to explain why.
      - Tichy 13y ago
        Mention some of those things, then. I suppose programming Microcontrollers for appliances, but I have never seen job postings for that (although they must exist). Might be because I didn't look at C jobs, though. What I meant is also that most apps these days can be coded as web apps, and it is difficult to justify not doing so.
        13y ago
imd23 13y ago
Months ago a friend of mine who is doing CS in my country (Uruguay) was really demotivated, basically just sad, because he couldn't see how the career he was studying would pay off. In Uruguay, CS programs are quite old and outdated. If I am not wrong the public university program dates from 1987. Prior to the internet. So you can imagine how people there feel depressed soon. After his constant demotivation I offered him to help him learn the web. And I was like, 'where the hell do O start?' I mean, I have been doing sites since I was 8. My first thought was pretty near what she did here, helps friend learn that he can do it alone. It has been my biggest motto in life, but I not everyone knows that it is just a matter of start and never quit. I offered him to guide him, but not help him. After some months he now knows Ruby, HTML5, CSS. My biggest lesson was that sometime we want everything now, but we underestimate the power of time and dedication.
tomekmarchi 13y ago
That's just down right cool
- zyngaro 13y ago
  Too bad it is most likely not true! But it's a down right cool PR move
  - bkanber 13y ago
    Why do you say that?
    - sergiotapia 13y ago
      Because it's completely unrealistic that a person who has no programming experience, even worse even no basic HTML experience will have familiarity with a Gemfile, how to hide access keys from a repository, etc. If you think that that information is something you can understand, internalize and actually make work in less than 5 days you're delusional.
      - robmcm 13y ago
        It doesn't say she understands it, could just be a copy paste from a tutorial right?
        sergiotapia 13y ago
        I highly doubt that. When I first started programming it took me upwards of a day to have a simple Windows Form that had two textboxes and displayed a Message Box saying "Hello" + textBox1.Text + " and " + textBox2.Text. Even copy and pasting didn't work.
        robmcm 13y ago
        Perhaps the state of tutorials and online help (stack overflow etc) are much better than in your day. I know they are compared to mine. Perhaps she coppied the whole project and then just went back through it, changing things and if they didn't work reverted.
weames 13y ago
This is very inspiring and makes believe I can do it now. Thank you for sharing and thank you even more for the discipline it took you to do this.
sebkomianos 13y ago
I am wondering how does this compare to attending a university's semester? (I am saying semester and not course since 180 days are 6 months) Please don't answer with the obvious "she didn't study algorithms or computation complexity", we all know she didn't. I am asking about the core issue.
a3voices 13y ago
If a man did this, would it generate the same publicity? I am genuinely wondering, I'm not trying to troll.
- ionforce 13y ago
  Yes and no, depending on your metric. If you look at it from the "hobbyist does cool hobby thing, gets a lot of upvotes" then yes. But if you look at it from the "minority does X cool thing" then the answer is no. I think there is some novelty that gender is being wrapped up into this. But I don't think a man doing the same thing would be completely ignored. I'm in the middle of studying a foreign language, so I am quite sympathetic to the "must do something every day" challenge. Man or woman it's quite commendable, no matter how small the feat.
- meerab 13y ago
  I didn't notice person was women until I started reading posts in HN. Why bring gender when others are discussing method of learning?
- dba7dba 13y ago
  http://devbootcamp.com/ http://devbootcamp.com/ They are doing well and supposedly 95% graduates get job immediately after graduating. Their classes are booked until apr 2014. They basically make students go through what she did, but in an office.
SkyMarshal 13y ago
Hey Jen, did you ever do a blog post on your hosting setup for 180 websites which mix simple html/css/js + Rails + Node? That would make an interesting blog post too.
- jenniferDewalt 13y ago
  I haven't written anything about it but I will definitely consider it. That would be a good way for me to fully internalize how the stack actually works. I bet I've come across a few weird things given my unconventional use, too.
eulerphi 13y ago
This is so far beyond couture and glam-show that it's ineffable how lame it is. HN, grow up. Lets see hacking posts, not posts by "hacks."
- markost 13y ago
  Really? HN is full of fluff, and this post is decidedly un-fluffy.
lemonberry 13y ago
She coded an iOS app called ruHot in 2009. Lot's of dedication getting 180 sites done in 180 days. Not a whole lot of dedication to honesty though.
- jenniferDewalt 13y ago
  I drew the graphics for the splash screen and donated my iPhone to the cause. My two friends did the coding.
fsniper 13y ago
It's a great start. Jennifer has started her journey with a bootstrap training. Now she has to learn, try, apply, fail and success again and again. After years with failed gigs, succeeded gigs, great works , bad works, half works, long works, short works and many other types of works done looking back and seeing what a rookie she was, she will laugh and tell herself, "Shoot why did I ever started this career" :) Nope just joking. She will just tell herself "I was zero then and still approaching 1" Well done Jennifer. Good luck on your new journey.
mattyod 13y ago
Very impressed with the notion as a whole and indeed some of the 1 day projects. I'd be very interested to see how you would adjust to a "professional" web development environment. I suspect well. If you are ever in London looking for a job give me a shout.
Tichy 13y ago
It's cool and inspiring, but having clicked through some of the sites I think it is actually an arts project, rather than an attempt at learning coding. As an art installation it works very well, and Jennifer said she is an artist originally, so I suspect that is what is really behind it. I'd reconsider learning coding that way, though, because too many sites seem to have little enduring value. I suspect by tackling a "deeper" project for 180 days one could learn coding just as well, but have more to show for. Unless you are an artist, in which case this result is great. The most inspiring aspect for me is actually the sticking to a plan for 180 days.
solistice 13y ago
Congratulations on getting the 180 websites done.
mustapha 13y ago
Inspiring. Thank you.
mustapha 13y ago
I wish I could create awesome things via copy and paste. They almost always seem to come out awfully wrong. I think I'm more mentally wired to learn things incrementally, than to act as a a prism as Jennifer has done, so gloriously in 180 days. Thank you for sharing this, I think HN has needed something like this.
latraveler 13y ago
Thanks, my years of steady learning seems so lackluster now :P Ryan --- http://www.radiumcrm.com http://www.radiumcrm.com
salemh 13y ago
Non-tech BA/PM dude. This is the more inspirational (or actionable / get my ass off and just get some projects loping around in my head done) that is bookmarked vs all of the brain-dump 100x links of "how to" build _x. The semantic argument of "coder" | "programmer" | :developer" | "computer scientist"| versus "built some cool stuff in ~1/2 a year, and now am continuing the journey", is hilarious in juxtaposition of "everyone should code" as a meme or call to arms. So, should only specific persons of an aptitude to sophistry be admitted as "positive" related to "learning to code"?
robmcm 13y ago
It will be really interesting to see how Jennifer manages the transition from learning to working in the industry. Hopefully she will update us on that part of the journey. Good luck!
Nodex 13y ago
This has already proven to be a fake marketing scam. WHY is this still on HN?
mcv 13y ago
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.
Log1x 13y ago
lol
jarnix 13y ago
Please post your resume on LinkedIn and stop talking about you ! The motto is "stop talking, start doing". What you did is not extraordinary, you just had time to lose and that's what you did. Basically you just procrastinated 180 days. If you want to code, then do useful applications, not another tic tac toe.

624 points by jenniferDewalt 13y ago

"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 http://www.infoq.com/author/Rich-Hickey), try reading and exercising data structures (b-tree, rb-tree, bitmaps, and a long etc), try different problems like database reporting and read "Code Complete" AND "The Nature of Code". You are up to a great start, but got a long way to go to call it "Comprehensive" Broad foundation? not really, no. Just today's popular areas of front end development. And today's popular is actually a very small area, common and with a lot of hype, but just a relatively small section of front end development Great project... keep going, there is much to discover!

DanielStraight 13y ago
I don't mean to nitpick, but I think you misread. She specifically said it hasn't given her a comprehensive understanding.
- statusgraph 13y ago
  Haha, not sure that qualifies as a "nit" given that it invalidates their point entirely ... :)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
jacquesm 13y ago
Not it has not, yes it has. Web development is for many intents and purposes now the equivalent of software development. That there are other areas of interest (embedded, systems software, application development and so on) does not detract from the fact that if you want to do software development web development is more than likely your point of entry and it's a field wide enough and deep enough that you could easily lose several careers in it. So for her it is a broad foundation to jump off of, more so than assembly language programming or toying around with clojure.
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  +1 to this, while some folks seem rather dismissive of web site design as "programming" (and I did back in the HTML4 days but these days, its very much a program) here is someone who has looked at this particular aspect and poked into a bunch of different areas. And that is all good. So much better to have 6 months experience building web sites before you say "I'll just make a career in building web sites" :-)
- sharkweek 13y ago
  I hate the argument that you have to dive into some complex language to really "understand" programming -- Some people just like to build stuff; much akin to someone who might just want to change the oil in their car. You would never ask them to build an entire transmission for their first project.
  - ionforce 13y ago
    Sure, you don't "have to" but you most likely do. To understand something implies some grasp of scope and size. And if you're continually working on toy problems, you'll never encounter problems of the appropriate scope or issues of scale. So that's kind of what people mean when they say you need to work with something complex. To understand a complex system is to know which parts are important and which aren't and at which levels of examination.
- jorgeleo 13y ago
  I post one answer to all the posts
pseudometa 13y ago
Remember you told me to tell you when you were acting 'rudely and insensitively'? Remember that? You're doing it right now.
carter770 13y ago
What the heck are you talking about? C'mon man...
mseebach 13y ago
That's pretty elitist. You seem to confuse "coder" with "computer scientist" or "software engineer". As the ecosystem of toolsets, frameworks and libraries mature, the number of opportunities for well-informed "commoners" with the right motivation to make computers do what they want them to increases violently. Lemma 1: Simple CRUD-style web-apps and scripts can be very useful. Lemma 2: Before-mentioned tools can be build to a perfectly serviceable standard without a comprehensive understanding of computer science. These two combined suggests that the author can indeed be a perfectly productive and effective creator of computer programs. I see no reason "coder" isn't a perfectly good title for such a person.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > That's pretty elitist. I think its accurate, not "elitist". > You seem to confuse "coder" with "computer scientist" or "software engineer". The claim was that the experience provided a broad foundation with regard to "software development". That is a broad field. Lots of experience in CRUD-style web apps isn't a broad base for "software development" generally, its a narrow (but potentially deep within that narrow domain) base. That's not to say its not a useful base, but its not broad. Also note that the response in GP to the claim of a broad base -- while pointing out that it was not broad -- also wasn't judgemental in way which justifies the claim of elitism. It explicitly recognized the project as great and encouraged continuing from there. > These two combined suggests that the author can indeed be a perfectly productive and effective creator of computer programs. I see no reason "coder" isn't a perfectly good title for such a person. Nothing in GP was contrary to these points, so you seem to be arguing against things no one said.
- jorgeleo 13y ago
  I post one answer to all the posts
tmimicus 13y ago
I don't usually comment... ...but man, you are a jerk. She's becoming a coder, not a computer scientist. And calling her work 'niche', then linking to a guy raving about Datomic, something that is even MORE niche? Man... I'm wasting my time calling you out.
- ars_technician 13y ago
  It can be hard to see if you spend a lot of time in web dev, but he is 100% correct. You confused about what computer scientists are. Think about this, some of the best computer scientists in the world would have difficulty passing fizzbuzz, let alone engineer large projects. Computer science != software engineering What she did is a niche, but linking to another niche is the whole point, not a counter-argument to what he said. The idea is to expand your view of programming, not spit on things that aren't in your field.
- jorgeleo 13y ago
  I post one answer to all the posts
furyofantares 13y ago
It might not be a "broad foundation" but I think it is a "broad foundation to jump off of". The foundation I jumped off of was being able to edit numbers in GORILLAS.BAS to change the size of the explosions.
huu 13y ago
She said that it -has not- given her a comprehensive understanding of software development, not that it has. Also agree with the other comments, this is pretty elitist. There's just no reason to comment and say, "well I'm not impressed".
- jorgeleo 13y ago
  Except that I said I am. I post one answer to all the posts
jorgeleo 13y ago
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 pads in my car. Then I decided that I was going to change the brake pads in 100 different car brands and models, so I did. Can I call my self a car mechanic? Nope, not even a brake specialist because I am forgetting a lot of other pieces and mechanism. But I can make a career out of it, fast brake maintenance. Now I see someone that has the stamina, the admirable dedication to actually go through it, so I see someone that has the ability to go much further than the average guy. Tease her, give her some pointers and directions, if she likes challenges, challenge her to go more out there. It is easy to sit back and clap at an accomplishment, and is no small accomplishment in this case. But she is thirsty for more, challenge her to more!!!... unless you don't know where that more is because the belief that web development is all there is to it Some areas of web design is programming... JavaScript, server side, and a long etc certainly are. HTML is document painting. It is important, it requires some serious skills, skills that for that matter I don't have, but HTML is not programming because there are no conditionals, no loops. The basics building blocks in programming are those. If this hurts, I am honestly sorry, but you have 2 options, either react in anger (which is a secondary feeling, and you need to see what feeling is the primary), or research what else is there and maybe you will learn a thing or 2. HTML plus JavaScript it is programming, HTML and some CSS can be stretched to call it programming Elitist? Confusing with "Computer Scientist"? I was just giving some pointers into other areas of software development. I did not mention Discrete mathematics, set theory, compiler construction, semantic analysis, etc, etc, etc. Those are areas for a Computer Scientist, and putting her against that can become discouraging instead of challenging, but then again, another computer scientist would have known that, wouldn't he? If all that you see about Rich is Datatomic and Clojure, then you are missing a lot. Simple vs. Easy is more what I am talking about, or functions as the thing that make data time travel, aha! that can change the way you think about software development. That is programming BBQ, not HTML salad. If you don't know what I am talking about... Google meet my friend here, friend meet Google. If there is something where she is above is that she took a challenge and meet it What the original article did is nothing short of amazing... so much accomplished, so much stamina, so much potential. She claim that she wants to jump off... well, I mention a few pools where she can dive in And finally... what is the difference between a jerk and tough love? can you recognize when you see it? There is really no absolute answer, but if you write it and read it back, you have a chance to see the color of the glasses that are in front of your eyes

baby 13y ago

This is incredible. I've been coding for more than 10 years and have been going incredibly slow, only coding when having a good idea. I just wish I had the time to do this to learn node.js and backbone...

dmak 13y ago
I learned that in life, you only don't have time if you don't make time for it. Don't take it the wrong way; For all I know, you might be saving the world behind the scenes.
Ixiaus 13y ago
There's always time! Wake up an hour earlier, get more disciplined, stay up an hour later, reorganize a weekend to squeeze in a few more hours there. If you truly want to learn something, you can make the time for it. I went from being a PHP programmer, to learning Scheme, to learning Erlang, to learning Haskell, to now looping back and leveling up on my Mathematics education and writing abilities (all while holding full-time jobs, building a startup, etc...) Next up is learning how to design websites artistically (I'm not a designer!). Learning how to sketch, combine colors, make vector graphics, etc...

jonahx 13y ago

This is really impressive, not just the speed and quality of the learning, but the stamina!

bjpcjp 13y ago

Congrats to Jennifer. Much respect.

andyl 13y ago

Her ability to attract attention was remarkable. She should become a marketer or spokesperson, not a coder.

mattdeboard 13y ago
Why? This is an incredible non-sequitir.
JPKab 13y ago
Your ability to be a dick is remarkable. You should be a mall cop, not a coder.
- antimagic 13y ago
  Careful champ - that was not necessarily a snarky comment. A more charitable reading would be that the andyl thinks that the OP could make more money / have a better career by focusing on what is clearly an intuitive gift that is highly valued in the employment market...
  - ritchiea 13y ago
    The phrase "not a coder" at the end of the comment signals snark pretty heavily. Suggesting that someone who spent the last 180 days coding should not be a coder is a very rude and dismissive. The OP could have easily praised her marketing savvy without suggesting she should not be a coder.
    - ars_technician 13y ago
      >The OP could have easily praised her marketing savvy without suggesting she should not be a coder. If someone is training to become a janitor and they have excellent marketing skills, it would not be rude to say he/she/it should not be a janitor and should be a marketer instead. You are trying so desperately to be offended by something that doesn't have to be offensive.

GuiA 13y ago

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 a tech company). If you're a programmer, think about following a similar, inverted journey: spend 180 days learning how to paint, or how to play the guitar, or writing poems- delivering a concrete outcome every day (and log it in a journal so you can trace back your progress; making that journal public, like she did, is optional but has benefits). I have many programmer friends (and myself!) who complain that they cannot draw/write/paint/cook for nothing. Those skills, just like programming, can be learned- and while becoming a master at any takes years, if not decades, learning the basics and being "functional" with any of them is a matter of a couple of months. Of course, taking 6 months to do just that is a bit radical (but, if you're young and in tech, totally doable- saving 6 months worth of expenses on a tech salary when you have no dependents is trivial) - but if you take 1 day a week, you'll only be 7x slower. If you take 2 hours a day instead of 8, you'll only be 4x slower. If you can work part time to keep a minimal income while working on becoming a master painter on the side, only 2x slower (of course you can nitpick with those simplifications, but the core idea is there - if you spend 2 hours a day learning the guitar, you'll go from total novice to enlightened beginner pretty fast). Thanks to the internet, it's now really hard to not find resources about learning anything- there are sites and forums and youtube videos on everything. Additionally, never underestimate the power of your social circle - trading skills is very fulfilling. (for example, my girlfriend's sister's bf is in a band, signed to a label, etc. and loves video games. He'd like to learn how to program basic little games, and I'm the only programmer he knows. That's pretty great, because I've been dying to get a talented guitar instructor). And learning those skills can make you even more valuable professionally- if you make entertainment apps, learning an instrument will allow you to compose your own music. If you're a freelance web developer, learning graphic design will allow you to build higher quality products and charge much much more. If you like to program video games, learning how to draw will enable you to design your own assets.

JPKab 13y ago
This. I'm incredibly impressed with the way she dove in and just started building stuff. I love that.

adt2bt 13y ago

Congratulations, Jennifer. I really appreciate the lessons learned here. Like my favorite college professor (and I'm sure many others, as it is a fairly popular quote) would say: Sometimes you have something that looks really ugly and gross. You can liken it to having to eat a slimy, bumpy frog. The best way to eat the frog, is just to swallow it. Once you get in the habit of swallowing your frogs, the rest of your day looks great. I think I'm going to apply the 180 small projects in 180 days to many different ideas. For example, I enjoy cooking. I will probably start a project to cook one meal from every country on earth every day for ~180 (196) days. I've done it so far on weekends, but I think speeding the tempo will help significantly. It forces me to practice, saves me $$ I would otherwise spend eating out, and grows my spice cabinet. Who knows, I might continue it with bread, websites, meditation, or whatever else.

DanielStraight 13y ago
If you haven't seen it yet, you'd probably appreciate this (or perhaps this was the inspiration for your comment in the first place): http://globaltableadventure.com/ http://globaltableadventure.com/ Basically, someone doing the cooking thing, but on a weekly basis. She only has 6 weeks left. Pretty awesome site.
- adt2bt 13y ago
  I had not seen it! Thank you for sharing. This is pretty awesome.
jenniferDewalt 13y ago
I love the idea of exploring the cuisine of other countries in a systematic way! Besides being super delicious, what a fun way to share a learning experience with family and friends.
thenomad 13y ago
I linked this above, but it's so directly relevant to your idea that I thought I should re-link it here: check out the Julie/Julia project, which was one woman doing approximately the same thing with cooking, albeit on a more focused topic: http://web.archive.org/web/20021217011704/http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html http://web.archive.org/web/20021217011704/http://blogs.salon... (As a side note, I love this idea, and would cheerfully jump into doing it myself were I not already rather overcommitted... From having cooked various world food banquets, I can tell you that you'll learn a HELL of a lot very quickly from doing this. Great idea: blog it!)

luisehk 13y ago

Wow, this is the total opposite of me. I just spent weeks setting up the perfect development environment, instead of getting actual work done. I need to rethink the way I work.

codereflection 13y ago
I would have done the same thing. Her ability to keep focused sends to be pretty incredible.
joshlegs 13y ago
Whhen i first started coding, i thought i had to go revisit all my math classes that i had forgotten. Still i have that same problem. When picking up a new api or something, instead of learning just how to use it quickly, i end up trying to learn a lot of its nuances first :S
ianstallings 13y ago
You are getting work done ;). Getting used to tools is what you are both doing. Just differently. But yes, dig in now!
sker 13y ago
I feel you there buddy, gotta get the whole (yeoman, bower, grunt, angularjs, batarang, postman, karma, typescript, git, git deployment, ci, visual studio support, assorted js librariers) setup ready to kick some ass.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
FLUX-YOU 13y ago
Sounds like you already have a job in development. I wouldn't worry too much if that's the case. :)

BigChiefSmokem 13y ago

Okay now build an e-commerce web site that can handle thousands of transactions on a daily basis and can talk to internal systems like CRM, warehousing, and manufacturing. I'll be honest here. Coding was fun when I was young, but now I code for the money. So stay young Ms. Dewalt - don't become a cynical bastard like me (us?).

sehr 13y ago
Evidence of why I tend to lurk on HackerNews. Some of you lot are insufferable sometimes.
- joshbert 13y ago
  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.
  - jmagoon 13y ago
    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.
mseebach 13y ago
How about no? It's great that you've built a webshop handling thousands of transactions a day (it's cute, you say that almost like "thousands per days" is a big number), but it's not like that is some universal rite of acceptance into the ranks of those worthy to write code. Maybe you should try to address the fact that you don't enjoy your job rather than projecting your misery onto the rest of us? I, for one, throughly enjoy making computers do things to solve problems (of which coding is a component).
jenniferDewalt 13y ago

ryanthejuggler 13y ago

I know I'm changing this by posting, but heh. http://i.imgur.com/4s4tlwr.png http://i.imgur.com/4s4tlwr.png

Tycho 13y ago

I found learning to code a little like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle. You can grab one tile and study it very carefully, but it’s not going to tell you very much about where it goes or how the whole puzzle looks. You’ve got to start collecting a bunch of tiles and piecing them together for you start to get the big picture. This is quite interesting. I think I do this sometimes. When I started working in finance and I remember getting really confused about how people use the word 'exposure'. Looking back it feels like I obsessed too much over one piece of the jigsaw.

brickcap 13y ago

Fantastic commitment. Gives me inspiration to roll up my sleeves and start my next project.

djvu9 13y ago

This reminds me of a recent story on China's twitter alike website. A girl (actually a model) decided to start learning python. She kept posting progress, asking questions and sometimes a photo of her. A ton of coders followed, gave advice and answered the questions everyday. One month or two later the girl became someone's girl friend. He is probably the only non-coder guy among those followers.

nachteilig 13y ago

The idea of more fine art people moving into coding is definitely exciting for me. I've been trying to encourage my friends in the sciences to learn code too. We'll definitely all benefit from the expanded perspectives.

jjoe 13y ago

I'm reluctant to reference a scene from a film because it seems too cliche. But it's analogically relevant so here it is (Matrix: Neo vs Morpheus): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j82GKTgVDkw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j82GKTgVDkw (check the relevant quotes down below) it's relevant because what we do on the Web is virtual. What we create for others to experience and use can seem magical. Every time someone creates a new product, a previously unthought-of experience, we're baffled, in awe. We're in shock even though we live a bit at the forefront of development (relatively). We feel empowered knowing that the Web is the one place we can potentially be Batman. What she set herself to do is grandiose and beyond what she thought to be capable of doing. Yet she shook off the negative inner chatter and kept trucking along. So I think there's something positive to learn from this for all of us. The work we do as product developers will always have a mundane or labor intensive component. This is where most of us take the "perseverance cap" off and start procrastinating. Not all the work is going to be fun and exciting. But the reward is awesome and packed with a healthy dose of endorphin. Relevant quotes: * Don't think you are; know you are! * Come on! Stop trying to hit me and hit me! * do you think that's air you're breathing now? * Do you really think me being strong or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place?

reikonomusha 13y ago

I 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, always trivial roadblocks that the student seems to hit. My brother, who is a very smart person, was beginning to learn Python, and going through Codecademy. He must have spent at least tens of hours on it. The simplest things he just didn't grok immediately. For example, the different between variables, strings, and symbols. He would type, for example: print hello world or name = john message = my name is + john That's only the beginning. The idea of data types, the concept that "truth" and "falsity" could be encapsulated in a manipulable piece of data called a "boolean" (which he would pronounce Boe Lean) were definitely not within arm's reach. Functions were even more troublesome. It wasn't just my brother. I was explaining to a friend, who is a very competent hardware guy, what a lambda function is. The idea that functions can be seen as data themselves. He eventually got it, but it took lots of explaining. And even after that, the small programs he wrote employing his newly found knowledge were riddled with bugs, formatting issues, style issues, and so on. It wasn't just my students, it was me as well. My first programs were something like 10 REM MY FIRST PROGRAM 20 PRINT "WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" 30 INPUT N 40 PRINT "HELLO ", N 50 GOTO 10 In fact, this program didn't even work in whatever BASIC implementation I was using. I just didn't get why. It turns out I needed to add the '$' sign to my variables to denote that they're strings. When I was writing code for doing arbitrary precision arithmetic, I was representing the numbers as strings of digits: "12345". I was translating between digit characters and decimal value using the CHR and VAL functions of the language. When I was first introduced to ALLOCATE, typed arrays, etc. it simply did not click and took a while. Pointers, the heap, the stack, BYREF, BYVAL, FREE? If I haven't made the point clear, there are a lot of things even we professional programmers take for granted, and things that we have long forgotten were hard, which those starting out with programming have major issues with, and almost deny the possibility of making something substantial in even a single day. Since I regularly teach programming, I am constantly reminded of them. While I suppose it's possible to achieve the amazing feat that Jennifer claims on her own and without personal instruction, it just seems unlikely. If it's true, it's great for self-promotion of course, but I don't want it to give the aspiring programmer the idea that they should be able to reasonably accomplish the same things she did. What she accomplished wasn't just picking up programming, it was: * programming in multiple languages & paradigms * understanding how they relate to each other * setting up programming environments * setting up and understanding 3rd party frameworks and libraries * being able to effectively communicate with programmers * understanding source control and deployment and then a lot more application specific things. That is a really tall order. If the work was genuinely done by an artist with no technical background with little outside help, then I would consider achievement incredibly brilliant. If it was not—which is how I feel—then I think the audience deserves a bit of honesty.

marincounty 13y ago

I'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 we need to glamorize the things we learn in life: Coder=website developer, automotive technician=mechanic. I once hade a girlfriend refer to herself as a Professional Photographer, but she never took a picture without moving from the little square setting. She was beyond irritating at dinner. I appalaud this woman. I applaud the person who paid for the apartment. I'm still a bit skeptical though. I have a feeling she might have had a live in coach? I'm sorry, but I've met too many people who leave out details. As I once told a customer, I've never net a women who was interested in reballing a Nvida Chip in a faulty motherboard. Save, any masoginistic claims. It's more about our society, and the need, or quest for a title in life. "What do you do?" is played out, and trite. I've known peope who spend their whole life looking for a title. You will probably have many titles in life if you took a few chances. So if you ever bump into me in a bar please don't ask me, "What do you do?" I might respond by throwing up on your trendy Sneakers?

BlackDeath3 13y ago
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.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  "Coding" has history: http://catb.org/jargon/html/C/code.html http://catb.org/jargon/html/C/code.html code 2. v. To write code. In this sense, always refers to source code rather than compiled. “I coded an Emacs clone in two hours!” This verb is a bit of a cultural marker associated with the Unix and minicomputer traditions (and lately Linux); people within that culture prefer v. ‘code’ to v. ‘program’ whereas outside it the reverse is normally true.

SubuSS 13y ago

Very good stuff. Don't let up!

tomasien 13y ago

I think the coolest thing about watching the project is that some of the ideas are like, actually good ideas. Maybe not huge ideas, but they're good ideas. I especially like Open Note. I always thought the bottleneck for Jennifer would be thinking of 180 ideas in time to make them into websites, but nope!

jenniferDewalt 13y ago
I really like Open Note as well and it's definitely on the table for a more fleshed out reboot in the coming weeks. Toward the end of the project, I started having trouble coming up with ideas that I could do in just one day. I started getting really excited about building bigger, more involved projects. That's when I knew 180 days was exactly the right time-frame for the project.

ddoolin 13y ago

I seriously wish I could do this. Does she ever talk about how it's possible for her to afford to do this? 10 hours a day learning sounds great but really isn't feasible for (I'm guessing) a very large majority of people.

dkokelley 13y ago
One way I've heard personal/professional development described is as follows: "You have two jobs (three if you have a family). You put in ~40 hours/week for your employer, and ~20 hours/week for yourself. In those 20 hours, you work on yourself (both physically and mentally). Exercise, read books, learn new things, develop new skills, improve yourself. Ten hours per day is probably not realistic if you work full time (unless you can overlap your time somehow). An hour before and after work, along with some free time on the weekends should be enough to get started.
jenniferDewalt 13y ago
I saved up some money so I could take the time to learn to code full time. I'm single and I eat a lot of ramen noodles.

danso 13y ago

The fact that she achieved her goal is just amazing enough...but this quote from the OP leaves me even more awestruck: > Keep coding! The end of my 180 websites in 180 days project marks the beginning of the rest of my life as a coder. 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. I plan to work on a couple of more complex websites that take more than a day to complete. I know people who've taken a semester basic web dev class, built a few sites, and already think they've got a handle on things. Jennifer made so many things, in so many ways, that she's learned not just how to build websites, but that she still has a lot to learn. A really stellar example for web devs of all skill levels.

dpweb 13y ago

Dunno how good a coder she is, but she has it locked down as a marketer. How many HN #1s this woman has?!

petea 13y ago

I 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 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. --- Edit 1. While rereading this blog post, I found that she made the first simple Rails app on day 69. So who was it that set up all the Rails dev environment for her starting day 1. I don't understand why she still wouldn't disclose how someone else helped her.

ag80 13y ago
She mentions specifically the Ruby on Rails Tutorial by Michael Hartl. This tutorial has a section on creating secret tokens within the first three chapters (while leaving in-depth discussion of it for later chapters), and starts discussing concepts like MVC and setting up a development environment in the first chapter. I'm working through the same tutorial myself, so I see no reason to doubt that it is entirely possible to set up a rails dev environment and get started in a single day. I would also argue she is in fact disclosing how "someone else" helped her -- "...sites like Stack Overflow, MDN, CSS Tricks, blogs and demos. I also used some great online tutorials". Using these resources is to me no different than having your experienced developer friend sit next to you. Probably better, in some cases.
ufmace 13y ago
Most of that stuff really isn't that hard. I learned a bunch of that stuff on my own, and I've been spending less than 10 hours a week on it. Surf HN and a few Reddit boards related to coding and Rails, and you'll pick up stuff like that. I first read that the secret_token.rb file does not belong in source control in some thread on here or r/programming. Not that it would be that tough to figure out - the name kinda invites googling, where the first few results will tell you what you need to know.

onion2k 13y ago

The project was an awesome undertaking, and completing it successfully is brilliant. Jennifer clearly has an aptitude for taking an idea for a small website from conception to completion quickly. That's a heck of a skill. But it's not a skill that makes a good web developer. Web development is, in the most part, the easiest kind of development. In 15 years of doing this stuff I can state with some authority that 99% of websites are simple CRUD applications. Web development doesn't challenge your coding skills much. Occasionally it does, but only if you get in to either a product company or an agency that does fun things. Most don't. The most important skills for a web developer are the ability to talk to a client, see a good solution based on an existing platform (Wordpress, Magento, Pyro, Backbone, etc), and implement it in an organised and maintainable way. Skills most coders see as dull. Spend the next 180 days learning how to do the "boring" side of business analysis, project management, simple admin stuff and then you'll be a brilliant web developer. Most of the people in the industry are terrible at that stuff.

enraged_camel 13y ago
>>Web development is, in the most part, the easiest kind of development. In 15 years of doing this stuff I can state with some authority that 99% of websites are simple CRUD applications. Web development doesn't challenge your coding skills much. Occasionally it does, but only if you get in to either a product company or an agency that does fun things. Most don't. I understand what you're trying to say in your post as a whole, but I hate the part I quoted because it comes across as extremely elitist, so much so that it takes away from your overall message. It's sort of odd because it perpetuates the weird hierarchy within the software development industry, where assembly coders look down upon C developers, who look down upon C++ developers, who look down upon C# developers, who look down upon web developers, and so on.
shubhamjain 13y ago
>>>But it's not a skill that makes a good web developer. Web development is, in the most part, the easiest kind of development. In 15 years of doing this stuff I can state with some authority that 99% of websites are simple CRUD applications. Web development doesn't challenge your coding skills much. Occasionally it does, but only if you get in to either a product company or an agency that does fun things. Most don't. Quite baseless, actually. While you just think web development as general CRUD but there are many aspects of web development that are challenging. It might not challenge you for smart algorithms, low level optimizations, or a clever recursion but what about a elegant UI, thinking about user experience, optimizing server performance, reducing page load time and many more. Saying that "X programming is easy, real programming is Y" is a bit immature to be honest.

andrewhillman 13y ago

Give her some time and she will eventually create a simple app that blows up. Obviously, she is extremely disciplined, focused, creative and most importantly, she has a story (fully documented)... and the press eats this shit up.

contextual 13y ago

This is like watching some n0ob at the gym do warm up reps with my maximum weight. I'm impressed, inspired even, but also feeling like I'm underachieving. Good for her.

ars_technician 13y ago
So to continue the analogy, she will now get bored with it and move on to the next interesting thing. Don't feel bad unless she continues at that pace for the next 5 years. It's easy to be excited about something new. It's not so easy to be excited when you've picked all of the low hanging fruit and you have to do the dirty work for a living.

jsogarro 13y ago

Major props goes out to Jennifer. I agree. The best way to learn is to JFDI. Good stuff!

Bahamut 13y ago

I too have went a similar journey - I went from my first programming job as a junior frontend dev to senior frontend dev (with full stack capabilities) in ~10 months. I'm pretty happy to see that someone else has taken the initiative to learn & grow. Does it matter that she had help? No, the end goal is what matters. Some public acknowledgement would probably be good as a thanks to those who have helped her, but I don't view it as a huge deal - that is between her and them, and they are probably savvy enough to come forward if they want to.

FLUX-YOU 13y ago
If I may ask, what skills and how many projects did you have when you joined as a junior?

wellboy 13y ago

Awesome, someone needs to make 180 Android apps within 180 days now. :)

gohrt 13y ago
https://code.google.com/p/android-30days-apps/ https://code.google.com/p/android-30days-apps/

scriptstar 13y ago

Jennifer, did you documented your journey? It could out sell some of the big names in the training niche. If you documented then would you like to share that with HN community please? Thanks.

arvindravi 13y ago
She did: http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/archive http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/archive
- scriptstar 13y ago
  Thanks. When she was at 115 days, she wrote a blog post and it pretty much summarises her learning path. http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/post/56319597560/im-learning-to-code-by-building-180-websites-in-180 http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/post/56319597560/im-learning-...

thenomad 13y ago

One quote springs to mind, given Jennifer's background as an artist, and the fact that key to her success has been finishing things and releasing them to the world, over and over again: "Real artists ship." - Steve Jobs

rzc 13y ago

I would encourage her to try things other than web development. Make a desktop application, or a program in C, or do some performance coding on an embedded system, or write a webserver from scratch, or wrestle with writing a program with multiple threads. You might say this is too much to expect from a beginner, but no one would have said that 20 years ago. It only seems hard because of how easy web development is today. Nowadays we have so much scaffolding to work from that it's easy to mistake results for software engineering skill. Many of these projects are mash-ups. I do admire her dedication, it's a rare quality, but I can't help but think this is the easy way out. Or maybe I'm just getting old.

Tichy 13y ago
It's getting difficult to justify coding anything else, though.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  No it isn't.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    There are a lot of things to do that have value that aren't web. There are a lot of things to do that you can be paid for that aren't web. There is some overlap. If it's hard to justify working on any of these things, the parent is going to have to explain why.
    - Tichy 13y ago
      Mention some of those things, then. I suppose programming Microcontrollers for appliances, but I have never seen job postings for that (although they must exist). Might be because I didn't look at C jobs, though. What I meant is also that most apps these days can be coded as web apps, and it is difficult to justify not doing so.
      - 13y ago

imd23 13y ago

Months ago a friend of mine who is doing CS in my country (Uruguay) was really demotivated, basically just sad, because he couldn't see how the career he was studying would pay off. In Uruguay, CS programs are quite old and outdated. If I am not wrong the public university program dates from 1987. Prior to the internet. So you can imagine how people there feel depressed soon. After his constant demotivation I offered him to help him learn the web. And I was like, 'where the hell do O start?' I mean, I have been doing sites since I was 8. My first thought was pretty near what she did here, helps friend learn that he can do it alone. It has been my biggest motto in life, but I not everyone knows that it is just a matter of start and never quit. I offered him to guide him, but not help him. After some months he now knows Ruby, HTML5, CSS. My biggest lesson was that sometime we want everything now, but we underestimate the power of time and dedication.

tomekmarchi 13y ago

That's just down right cool

zyngaro 13y ago
Too bad it is most likely not true! But it's a down right cool PR move
- bkanber 13y ago
  Why do you say that?
  - sergiotapia 13y ago
    Because it's completely unrealistic that a person who has no programming experience, even worse even no basic HTML experience will have familiarity with a Gemfile, how to hide access keys from a repository, etc. If you think that that information is something you can understand, internalize and actually make work in less than 5 days you're delusional.
    - robmcm 13y ago
      It doesn't say she understands it, could just be a copy paste from a tutorial right?
      - sergiotapia 13y ago
        I highly doubt that. When I first started programming it took me upwards of a day to have a simple Windows Form that had two textboxes and displayed a Message Box saying "Hello" + textBox1.Text + " and " + textBox2.Text. Even copy and pasting didn't work.
        robmcm 13y ago
        Perhaps the state of tutorials and online help (stack overflow etc) are much better than in your day. I know they are compared to mine. Perhaps she coppied the whole project and then just went back through it, changing things and if they didn't work reverted.

weames 13y ago

This is very inspiring and makes believe I can do it now. Thank you for sharing and thank you even more for the discipline it took you to do this.

sebkomianos 13y ago

I am wondering how does this compare to attending a university's semester? (I am saying semester and not course since 180 days are 6 months) Please don't answer with the obvious "she didn't study algorithms or computation complexity", we all know she didn't. I am asking about the core issue.

a3voices 13y ago

If a man did this, would it generate the same publicity? I am genuinely wondering, I'm not trying to troll.

ionforce 13y ago
Yes and no, depending on your metric. If you look at it from the "hobbyist does cool hobby thing, gets a lot of upvotes" then yes. But if you look at it from the "minority does X cool thing" then the answer is no. I think there is some novelty that gender is being wrapped up into this. But I don't think a man doing the same thing would be completely ignored. I'm in the middle of studying a foreign language, so I am quite sympathetic to the "must do something every day" challenge. Man or woman it's quite commendable, no matter how small the feat.
meerab 13y ago
I didn't notice person was women until I started reading posts in HN. Why bring gender when others are discussing method of learning?
dba7dba 13y ago
http://devbootcamp.com/ http://devbootcamp.com/ They are doing well and supposedly 95% graduates get job immediately after graduating. Their classes are booked until apr 2014. They basically make students go through what she did, but in an office.

SkyMarshal 13y ago

Hey Jen, did you ever do a blog post on your hosting setup for 180 websites which mix simple html/css/js + Rails + Node? That would make an interesting blog post too.

jenniferDewalt 13y ago
I haven't written anything about it but I will definitely consider it. That would be a good way for me to fully internalize how the stack actually works. I bet I've come across a few weird things given my unconventional use, too.

eulerphi 13y ago

This is so far beyond couture and glam-show that it's ineffable how lame it is. HN, grow up. Lets see hacking posts, not posts by "hacks."

markost 13y ago
Really? HN is full of fluff, and this post is decidedly un-fluffy.

lemonberry 13y ago

She coded an iOS app called ruHot in 2009. Lot's of dedication getting 180 sites done in 180 days. Not a whole lot of dedication to honesty though.

jenniferDewalt 13y ago
I drew the graphics for the splash screen and donated my iPhone to the cause. My two friends did the coding.

fsniper 13y ago

It's a great start. Jennifer has started her journey with a bootstrap training. Now she has to learn, try, apply, fail and success again and again. After years with failed gigs, succeeded gigs, great works , bad works, half works, long works, short works and many other types of works done looking back and seeing what a rookie she was, she will laugh and tell herself, "Shoot why did I ever started this career" :) Nope just joking. She will just tell herself "I was zero then and still approaching 1" Well done Jennifer. Good luck on your new journey.

mattyod 13y ago

Very impressed with the notion as a whole and indeed some of the 1 day projects. I'd be very interested to see how you would adjust to a "professional" web development environment. I suspect well. If you are ever in London looking for a job give me a shout.

Tichy 13y ago

It's cool and inspiring, but having clicked through some of the sites I think it is actually an arts project, rather than an attempt at learning coding. As an art installation it works very well, and Jennifer said she is an artist originally, so I suspect that is what is really behind it. I'd reconsider learning coding that way, though, because too many sites seem to have little enduring value. I suspect by tackling a "deeper" project for 180 days one could learn coding just as well, but have more to show for. Unless you are an artist, in which case this result is great. The most inspiring aspect for me is actually the sticking to a plan for 180 days.

solistice 13y ago

Congratulations on getting the 180 websites done.

mustapha 13y ago

Inspiring. Thank you.

mustapha 13y ago

I wish I could create awesome things via copy and paste. They almost always seem to come out awfully wrong. I think I'm more mentally wired to learn things incrementally, than to act as a a prism as Jennifer has done, so gloriously in 180 days. Thank you for sharing this, I think HN has needed something like this.

latraveler 13y ago

Thanks, my years of steady learning seems so lackluster now :P Ryan --- http://www.radiumcrm.com http://www.radiumcrm.com

salemh 13y ago

Non-tech BA/PM dude. This is the more inspirational (or actionable / get my ass off and just get some projects loping around in my head done) that is bookmarked vs all of the brain-dump 100x links of "how to" build _x. The semantic argument of "coder" | "programmer" | :developer" | "computer scientist"| versus "built some cool stuff in ~1/2 a year, and now am continuing the journey", is hilarious in juxtaposition of "everyone should code" as a meme or call to arms. So, should only specific persons of an aptitude to sophistry be admitted as "positive" related to "learning to code"?

robmcm 13y ago

It will be really interesting to see how Jennifer manages the transition from learning to working in the industry. Hopefully she will update us on that part of the journey. Good luck!

Nodex 13y ago

This has already proven to be a fake marketing scam. WHY is this still on HN?

mcv 13y ago

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.

Log1x 13y ago

lol

jarnix 13y ago

Please post your resume on LinkedIn and stop talking about you ! The motto is "stop talking, start doing". What you did is not extraordinary, you just had time to lose and that's what you did. Basically you just procrastinated 180 days. If you want to code, then do useful applications, not another tic tac toe.