
How to Pull a Jennifer Dewalt - jaf12duke
http://humbledmba.com/how-to-pull-a-jennifer-dewalt
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peterwwillis
> Make For the Sake of Making

I don't get this strange virtue of new-age geeks. If you said "Make For the
Fun of It", i'd get that; making can sure be fun. But making things for no
point whatsoever, other than to keep yourself busy? At least with knitting you
eventually get practical use out of what you spent time on.

I have a shelf of unfinished projects and directories full of thousands of
lines of unfinished code. In retrospect I wish I had spent my time flying a
kite.

~~~
rguzman
I think you answered your own question. Making stuff is not constantly fun. It
is more like hours upon hours of confusion and drudgery sprinkled with minutes
of elation "wow that worked!" (Try making something in hardware to see this
with maximal prominence).

The point is that if you are only looking to have fun once the going gets hard
you'll just stop and shelve the project. On the other hand, if your goal is to
make something ie if you are Making For the Sake of Making (tm) you'll be more
likely to actually cross the thresholds of difficulty at which you learn
significant lessons.

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BigChiefSmokem
I wish Hacker News didn't allow marketing fluff like this. It's the same thing
that happened to Slashdot. The MBAs took it down.

~~~
null_ptr
Blog posts about other blog posts. It's a pattern that many here seem to
follow. It really makes you aware of the real ratios of content to fluff and
creation to recycling in today's tech community.

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tsm
> Tell lots of people

Sure, that works for making websites. In fact, I'd argue that website-building
is one of the most easily-publicizable things on the Internet, which is mostly
composed of websites.

But what about niche things? I'd greatly enjoy "180 traditional Scottish dance
tunes in 180 days", but there's not an HN-ish outlet for that. I'd also enjoy
"180 reflections on philosophical readings from the Enlightenment in 180
days", but any philosophers I have easy access to aren't going to be
interested—they're beyond that. Similarly for topics I don't actually care
about. 180 new meals? Only a few people can eat them. 180 poems? Deliver us.

Dewalt's feat became famous for two reasons: a) It's a common task done in an
uncommon way (everyone knows what website-building is, very few think it's
reasonable to pop one out every day for six months) and b) The demographic who
would be most supportive of it is very easily-accessible in large numbers.

~~~
thenomad
Scottish dance tunes: just from a quick Google on the subject, I'd recommend
talking to [http://www.scottishdance.net/](http://www.scottishdance.net/)
about it, probably also the Scottish Arts Council, /r/scotland and so forth.

Reflections on philosophical readings? /r/philosophy has 148k subscribers.

180 new meals? Write 'em up on eGullet (I've had very positive responses to my
writing up foodie experiments there), /r/food, tell the massive foodie
blogosphere about them.

It also doesn't matter, in all cases, how large your audience is, only that
they appreciate your work - at least, if you're looking to finish rather than
to become famous (which I think was the purpose of this blog post). I've spent
1-2 hours worldbuilding and game desiging every week for the past 4 years for
a total audience of two people: the players in my weekly RPG. That's a big
enough audience to keep me motivated and keep me creating that particular work
- over 200 times so far.

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pekk
Not everyone will be able to pull a Jennifer Dewalt. Attention is a zero-sum
resource. As more people attempt to get front page on Hacker News for their
self-promotion, fewer and fewer will end up getting that exposure. Also, the
signal to noise goes down.

Let's see the quality people can produce, not just quantity. And let's focus
on the quality, not on the people.

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tomasien
The ending: "Try this: build 1 website in 1 day" reminds of something an
internet spam/dark arts guru said that really inspired me (won't link for
reasons): "If someone held a gun to your head and said you have 24 hours to
build a website, you'd have a website built within 24 hours."

~~~
agilebyte
Re 24 hours: I would, because I would outsource it on elance.

I like coding too much to be a _professional_ and focus only on getting things
done. There is joy in reinventing the wheel and messing about.

~~~
tomasien
However you'd get it done, you'd get it done. That's the point.

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ChuckMcM
I appreciate that Jason here refines some of the key things about Jennifer's
approach that helped her be successful. I find I am most effective when I use
similar things (like well defined steps with a start, middle, end definition)
and least effective when my goal is more amorphous. An example might be "Learn
Clojure" versus "Build 5 apps in Clojure."

Usually when I'm stuck on something its because I don't have a concrete enough
definition.

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metaphorm
I know that a certain group of people find this story inspiring. I find it to
be a huge turn off. It seems more like the story of how easy it has become to
google search for code snippets and copy paste them and tweak them until they
work.

Is this actually a good way to learn how to program? I really doubt it.

~~~
JasonFruit
I think it's an okay way to _start_ to learn to program. It will likely get
you to a point where you are ready to _really_ learn, especially if you
approach it with curiosity, determination, and the willingness to experiment.

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shubb
Question for 'business guys' here - How would you learn sales, or business, in
180 days?

~~~
dustincoates
Jason Fried suggests buying and selling the same thing over and over on a
place like Craigslist or eBay: [http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110301/making-
money-small-busi...](http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110301/making-money-small-
business-advice-from-jason-fried.html)

