
My First Year of Coding - jenniferDewalt
http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/post/81451670618/my-first-year-of-coding
======
enraged_camel
Jennifer, I was going through the top 10 stories, saw the jenniferdewalt.com
domain, and thought, "oh, it's that girl who sat down and taught herself how
to code!"

In my mind I've sort of associated the brand "Jennifer Dewalt" with ambition,
dedication and inspiration. I send your posts and websites to my sister to
encourage her down a similar path. Keep up the great work! :)

~~~
jenniferDewalt
Thank you! Learning something new is so intimidating but I really think the
best way to do is to just dive right in. Sure, you'll suck at first but that's
ok. Eventually you'll get better.

~~~
mantazer
I agree 100%. The experience I've gained working on personal projects of my
own has brought me further than working on class assignments. Not being afraid
to fail will take you a long way.

------
sergiotapia
My younger brother went from not knowing what a <p> or <a> tag was to hand-
making this in 2 months: [http://www.midepo.com/products/6150-venta-bolivia-
non-enim-t...](http://www.midepo.com/products/6150-venta-bolivia-non-enim-
totam-doloremque-expedita-et-in)

Responsive, built using Ruby on Rails, bootstrap, jquery, etc.

Any questions he had he could ask me and I would nudge him along, but it was
90% his determination that got him to where he's at now. Having a mentor
helps. I hope at least someone is inspired by jennifer or my brother, it can
be done and an insane amount of time! You just need the cojones.

~~~
m_mueller
@curbenthusiasm: you seem to have been hell banned - I can't figure out why.

edit: Really? Could the downvoter explain to me what's wrong with this
comment? Are we supposed to just leave banned accounts to rot now?

~~~
steveklabnik
Telling people they're hellbanned destroys the purpose of hellbanning.

~~~
m_mueller
Basically it's a system of checks and balances. Hellbanning makes trolling
less efficient while showdead makes it possible to correct mistakes. In the
case here noone could point out to me why he was banned, so I have to assume a
mistake. According to your logic, HN could as well just disable showdead.

~~~
steveklabnik
If I had to guess, it would be due to a new account submitting a YouTube link:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=curbenthusiasm](https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=curbenthusiasm)

(and yes, I agree, it'd work even better without showdead.)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>"it'd work even better without showdead" //

What's actually wrong with this persons activity here though - they're
[presumably] new and haven't had chance to learn all about HN yet. Their
questions/comments don't seem so terrible that they should be hellbanned, or
do you disagree.

Presumably what you're saying here is that no-one should have the chance to
warn those who're hellbanned, we should trust the secret machination of HN to
always be right?

~~~
steveklabnik
I actually very often disagree with the secret machinations of HN.

It's not that I agree or disagree with this particular banning, but that in
the aggregate, "you are a new account and you post a link to youtube" is a
pretty good general characteristic. While it's unfortunate that there's
sometimes a false positive, most things that I see explicitly dead deserve to
be.

Besides, it's pretty easy to figure out if you've been hellbanned, and then if
you're real, you can ask dang (I guess, now, eh?) to reverse it. No warnings
needed.

------
readymade
It's worth revisiting the original HN post from last year:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6097155](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6097155)

IMHO she deserves kudos not just for accomplishing her goal (which really is
impressive enough on its own) but doing so in the face of a community with
such deeply ingrained sexism that some people thought it "suspicious" at the
outset.

Obviously she's a strong enough person that this kind of stuff didn't derail
her project, but one can only imagine what a different world we'd be in if
projects like these were met with more encouragement and less derision.

Not that the haters are getting any satisfaction today.

~~~
kbajorin
It seems to me encouragement is the dominant response, both here and in the
original post.

My criticism would be that in her post she highlights only the negative
comments she got. When, on the whole, the community votes her posts up and the
top comments are always positive.

~~~
jenniferDewalt
The response from the community has been amazingly and wonderfully supportive.
My comments in the post were mostly a reflection on the weird things people
have said to me personally. For example, I had a close family member look me
dead in the eye and say, "You shouldn't have started this project."

------
mbesto
_" Most importantly, I’ve been able to overcome the fear of being judged.
Whether you are making a piece of artwork, teaching yourself something new or
building a business you’re bound to encounter some negative energy. People
will say some pretty weird or just plain mean things to you when you’re doing
something kind of crazy. Those comments sting a bit, but they’re most
dangerous when you let them feed your self doubt. Battling your own self doubt
is incredibly formidable."_

This is above and beyond, the greatest lesson I've learned as an entrepreneur.
Kudos to you Jennifer for finding the same.

------
jere
Hmm... I read this and wanted more information about what happened in the
_last_ 185 days. There's a link to the YumHacker site but not much context
there. Here's a post explaining it a bit more:
[http://blog.yumhacker.com/post/74733516768/yumhacker-i-
built...](http://blog.yumhacker.com/post/74733516768/yumhacker-i-built-a-
social-network-for-food-and-heres)

~~~
jenniferDewalt
Good point! Thanks for posting the link to the YumHacker blog post. I've added
it to this blog post as well.

------
mb_72
"I’m still dealing with a bit of impostor syndrome and it still sounds weird
when I tell people I’m a software engineer..."

That's because you aren't a software engineer, and if you are saying so then
the feelings of being an impostor are entirely warranted.

'Coding' is one thing, 'engineering' is something different altogether.

I'm afraid this falls into the 'you don't know what you don't know category'.

~~~
motoford
+1

and then there is also that bit about no such thing as a "software engineer" …

~~~
motoford
I love the down votes on this. Must have hurt some feelings.

------
stickperson
I started to learn how to code back in August and got my first job as a
developer at the end of February. I went through a bootcamp and didn't see
anyone besides my girlfriend for 10 weeks.

It's definitely tough not having a mentor, and I struggled a bit for a couple
months after classes trying to figure out what I should spend my time
learning. I still struggle with it when working on personal projects and often
worry I'm not doing things the "best" way.

I sometimes get overwhelmed because there's so much I don't know, and deep
down I know I'll never be as good/desirable as someone with a CS degree. That
being said, I'm very happy where I am and wouldn't change anything.

~~~
ericabiz
> deep down I know I'll never be as good/desirable as someone with a CS
> degree.

I stopped working to write this comment--that's how important it is to me that
you know this is a belief that will only hold you back.

I could cite any one of thousands of articles that talk about dropouts who
made it, but I suspect you know about those articles and it hasn't affected
your belief.

So I'll just say this: If I had graduated with a degree, I would have never
been able to bootstrap a tech company when I was 20 and sell it for over a
million dollars when I was 26.

Don't look at yourself through the eyes of others, because you'll always find
yourself wanting. I'm sitting here about to launch my new company (we're doing
final testing of our new website right now.) I have no idea whether our site
(which is kind of wacky) will convert. I don't know if we'll get any sales.
And I've got everything riding on this company--I've put all my chips in.

There's enough in this world that will kick your ass. People haven't believed
in my companies for the past 13 years I've been running them. People have
laughed in my face, investors have turned me down over and over again,
customers have quit, money has been lost (and, on a brighter note, much money
has been made!)

Sometimes the only thing you can count on is your internal belief that you
WILL make it, no matter what. That's what got me through my last company
during its darkest hours. That's what's getting me through now. Enough people
will throw shit in your face. Don't be one of them. You are better than that.

The world is full of possibilities. Don't count yourself out. Jennifer sure
didn't. ;)

~~~
carrotleads
Now if this is true, that takes lots of balls...

I mean the whole "-I've put all my chips in." burn the boats outlook.

I quit my job to work on my startup ideas but have difficulty throwing all my
savings in. Wife & kids is my excuse.

~~~
ericabiz
> Now if this is true, that takes lots of balls...

Yep, it really is. Not only have I turned down several huge income
opportunities to work on MarketVibe, but I'd also sell just about everything I
have to see this product come to market. We have a true game-changer of a
product, and it's something I really believe in. We also have the right team
to build it--I'm a target customer for this product, which is one reason I
know the market needs it so badly. And it's a nice money-maker (SaaS).

But yeah. If I had to sell my car tomorrow to finance the startup, I'd do it
with zero second thoughts. I'm in this 100%. Otherwise, why run a startup at
all?

~~~
carrotleads
I heard of someone in australia doing something similar its called Newsmaven

but you seem to adding a dynamic conversion form too.

and props for having the balls to go all in. My argument is that all my
savings and assets is not mine. I share it with my family. I can/should only
risk my part of the savings/assets even though I have the right to act
unilaterally.

Some of my problem is having a savings habit and not being a spendy type of
guy. Its an asset as well as I need to learn to loosen up and spend on lot
more needed stuff to make our carrotleads product a success.

------
andygcook
My girlfriend expressed interest in learning to code last weekend. You were my
example of someone she should research and mimic to start off her journey.

What you've accomplished is extremely impressive and serves as a shining
example of how someone can go from knowing morning to developing a true skill.
Job well done!

------
aurumpotest
This is the first I've seen of this project, it looks inspirational. But how
did you choose the projects? I've often wanted to do a small project just for
the sake of making something nice and pretty, and improving my skills at the
same time, but I can never come up with anything. All your ideas are great -
but I can't imagine being able to come up with one a day for 6 months!

Also, how did the project work out time-wise? Were you working at the same
time? Roughly how long did you spend on each site?

Keep up the good work!

~~~
jenniferDewalt
Before I started the 180 project I made a list of every idea I could think of.
Then as the project went along I was often inspired by something I came across
the day before or a new concept I wanted to explore. I had a few moments where
I thought I'd never have a good idea again.

I quit my job last year and have been working on the 180 websites project and
now YumHacker full time. I spent on average 10 hours a day on the 180 project.

------
null_ptr
What do you plan to do next to advance your skills and understanding of
software making? How important was being in the spotlight to motivate you to
go down this path?

~~~
jenniferDewalt
I've been working a website called YumHacker since I've finished the 180
project. It's a restaurant discovery app using Rails as an API on the back end
and Backbone.js on the front end. I learned a lot with the 180 websites
project and working on a full scale app has been really great for taking my
skills to the next level.

Making myself publicly accountable was definitely a great motivator but my
biggest take away was getting over the fear of being wrong/judged.

~~~
jmcgough
I really appreciate you open-sourcing it - I spent some time trying to figure
out how to best integrate RoR and Backbone when I was learning the latter, and
having your source code to poke around at was really helpful.

------
carrotleads
Well I am showing this to my 2 girls.

They have got C++ & Unix books on their shelves but as far as I can tell, it
hardly been read.

Hoping your story gets the ball rolling.

~~~
kirab
Reading some (probably hard technical) books is the hardest way there is to
start this thing. Especially with C++ where it’s hard enough just to see your
results. If you want something to be done, give them something where they can
see their results ASAP. You can of course achieve this with C++, but then you
should get them a working IDE, debugger and maybe some easy graphical library
to play around with.

~~~
carrotleads
actually the idea is not the learn C++ or unix. Most of those books have great
introductory chapters and I am hoping that piques their interest.

As of now they know only the basics of markup language.

------
lowglow
You rock, Jen! You should be super proud of the progress you've made.

~~~
jenniferDewalt
Thank you! It's been a crazy awesome year.

------
joshdance
Congratulations. You honestly inspired me. Thank you for sharing.

------
wglb
The 180 sites in 180 days effort and result is simply awesome.

------
NAFV_P
Did anyone notice the cheeky ascii art in the website source?

------
flclny
Congratulations! I've been toying with the idea of getting more serious about
learning how to code, and this is great inspiration. Thanks for sharing!

------
neovive
Very inspiring! Did you compile a list of the resources you used while
learning each of the languages/libraries or was it pretty random?

~~~
jenniferDewalt
I pulled lots of bits and pieces from all over the place but some of the big
helpers have been Stack Overflow, MDN, HTML5 Canvas Tutorials, Rails Tutorial,
GitHub, jQuery docs, and the Rails docs. I read tons of blogs and demos as
well.

------
adamworth2
Jennifer, you're an inspiration. I created an account just to tell you that.
Stay awesome!

------
hpriebe
Congrats! This is such an inspiration. What kind of resources did you use to
learn?

~~~
jenniferDewalt
The internet! I spent most of my time googling, searching Stack Overflow,
reading online demos, tutorials blog post and poring over docs to find the
answers to my questions. There are tons of free resources out there.

------
joshbert
You and your project are truly inspiring. Congratulations on everything!

------
zkirill
Congratulations! YumHacker is coming along nicely!

~~~
jenniferDewalt
Thanks! I'm currently working on v2.0 which I am really excited about.

------
nemasu
This is awesome, good work!

------
columbo
Very impressive, great job

------
mastermindxxx
nice story, but you cant call that "coding". looked at the website and its
sophistication can be compared to a kid practicing how to write the alphabet
in primary school.

in terms of the learning curve this can be pulled off by an above avg 13 year
old in 2 weeks....

Nonetheless women + coding or women + investment banking etc. is the magic
combo that will put you on the front page in these days. talk about gender
equality/survival of the fittest....lol

~~~
aurumpotest
She might not have done the most complicated things in the world - I'm no
expert "coder" but I've done more complex things than her.

BUT I'd bet she's a better "coder" than me. She will be rock solid on all the
basics, so she has a great base to do more complicated things. For the more
complicated things I've done, I was relying heavily on stackoverflow searched
and the like, and although I made complicated things that worked, they were
probably fairly basic mistakes and things that could cause future problems
that Jen wouldn't have made/done.

Too many people these days (me among them) jump in without knowing how to swim
and then struggle to stay afloat. Jen taught herself to swim first.

------
coderbroder
the word coding is so annoying when it's used as a one-fits-all sort of thing,
it's like when people use the word literally instead of figuratively

~~~
HillRat
Well, if you want to get ridiculously technical, we shouldn't use "coding" for
anything higher-level than assembling bytecodes at the machine level. The term
was in common currency at least as early as Wheeler's "The Use of Sub-Routines
in Programming" (1952), while by 1954 the term "automated coding" was being
used to describe the use of higher-level languages such as Hopper's A-2 or
IBM's Speedcode (and, indeed, even basic mnemonic coding and relative/symbolic
address transformations that underlie what we today call "assembly
programming").

As it is, I'm comfortable using the term to denote any activity that
programmatically and logically instructs a computer to take a certain sequence
of actions. C? Coding! Java? Coding! JavaScript? Coding! CSS? Coding! Excel
columns? Coding! Ctrl-h and a regex selector? Coding! It's coding all the way
down!

------
altero
Nothing against Jennifer, her stuff is impressive.

But I find this ridiculous. This is called learning and is done by
thousandth/millions others. Everyone has to overcome their fear of being
judged and stuff. Giving kudos just because of gender just undermines girls to
take on harder challenges in future.

I started coding professionally when I was 17 not to starve, while overcoming
depression and mental illness. My cousin started coding recently, he was born
without hands! Nobody gives a shit because we are men.

~~~
omegant
For me is not interesting because is a woman, it´s interesting because she
made public the process and what she did. That´s very useful to me because I
want to learn, and also I want to be able to point somebody that asks me to an
amazing example. Please tell your learning process if you think you may help
someone due to your special situation.

~~~
altero
I think here website is impressive as bunch of simple puzzles. I teach
programming as a hobby and I may actually use some of that stuff.

I have problem with comments here. Nobody offers any sort of constructive
criticism. We should review source code and give her some advice. Perhaps
recommend a new framework to use, or even completely new direction (NodeJS).

------
marincounty
I think Jennifer is truly inspiring. I wish I thought anyone over 10 years old
using words like yum was still cute though. I'm sorry, but I sat next to a
group of extremely privileged twenty something people last night-- and had to
listen to how yummy their food was, and oh the picture taking. I get it, you
enjoy your food. Just stop describing it in public; some of us just want to
eat. And yes--I do think of all the starving kids whenever I hear yummy out of
privileged people mouths. I'll probally get banned for this post, but it just
might be the best thing anyone has ever done to me.

~~~
jenniferDewalt
Don't worry, I've seen much, much harsher critiques of things on HN. I doubt
you'll get banned. I'll have to keep in mind that the name YumHacker was so
offensive to someone they were compelled to write an off topic rant about it,
though.

~~~
dang
_I 've seen much, much harsher critiques of things on HN._

As have we all. It makes me cringe thinking about it!

 _I doubt you 'll get banned._

Your intuition is better than most; that comment has been punished enough.
Things go much better when the community corrects things itself without
moderators intervening. My goal is never to have to do anything. Edit: My
long-term goal. :)

