Look, you are making the assumption that she went into the whole 180-day project with absolutely no idea about web technology. Given what she says, I think that

Look, you are making the assumption that she went into the whole 180-day project with absolutely no idea about web technology. Given what she says, I think that's a wrong assumption. From the post: 'When I set out on this project, I knew I wanted to learn to code dynamic interactive websites, but I also knew next to nothing about coding. Rather than try to tackle the enormous task of building a complex, fully functional social network, I took a small first step. I pieced together a few bits of html and CSS to make the website for day 1, the homepage for the project.' So if you look at the first sentence--she clearly knew something--some terminology, some idea of the technology and what it could do. IMO, most programming (heck, most tech stuff) is just _knowing_ that something's possible. After that, you just need to look up how to do it. There are kids out there who pick up this stuff easy as breathing. I think she did the same thing, just on a slower trajectory.