
After 180 Websites, I’m Ready to Start the Rest of My Life as a Coder - jenniferDewalt
http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/post/62998082815/after-180-websites-im-ready-to-start-the-rest-of-my
======
petea
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.

~~~
fein
I've been a pretty hardcore PHP guy for 3 years now, and know exactly how long
it would have taken me to do all of this: probably 200 days on my own.

My biggest issue is stuff like this. Take a look at the JS from day 1-8, then
look at day 9.

Day 8:
[http://jenniferdewalt.com/more_drop_shadow.html](http://jenniferdewalt.com/more_drop_shadow.html)

Day 9:
[http://jenniferdewalt.com/bouncing_ball.html](http://jenniferdewalt.com/bouncing_ball.html)

That's a pretty massive jump in coding proficiency in a delta of one day.

This has nothing to do with marginalizing skill, it just seems like there was
some outside help here, and that should probably be credited.

edit: I see a lot of different indent patterns on the JS as well. That kind of
points me towards n different coders with at least two different text editor
configs, or a good deal of copy->paste from SO.

~~~
kens
I know I shouldn't even get involved here, but I looked at day 8 vs day 9 very
carefully and day 9 clearly builds on day 8 (e.g. the disableSelection code is
carried over). The indentation that bothers you is feature testing code cut-
and-paste from
[http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.cssHooks/](http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.cssHooks/).
The additional JS code for the ball animation is totally reasonable for
someone to learn and implement in a short time.

TL;DR: there's no red flag here.

~~~
ars_technician
TL;DR; people make whatever justifications they want from the code to support
their stance.

------
GuiA
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.

~~~
enraged_camel
There are two type of people in life.

The first type graduates from college and their learning stops for the most
part. They say to themselves, "well, I studied for four years and got a job,
now it's finally time to sit back and relax." So they put in their regular 9-5
and then come home and waste their lives away by watching TV shows and playing
video games and going out and getting drunk on weekends. Essentially, they
"settle" into a middle-class lifestyle, where they earn enough money to get by
and may be save a little too. They may be content, but they are also always
stressed about the prospect of losing their jobs, because at their level of
skill and ambition, they are almost always employees, rather than employers.
Eventually, that's exactly what happens as the work they do is automated and
they find themselves unemployed with little savings and no other skill that
they can contribute to the economy.

The second type has a perpetual hunger for knowledge. They see college as the
"launch pad" for a lifetime of learning. So they graduate and get jobs, but on
the side they continue to read, discuss, listen and apply. They hang out with
smart and successful people who also read, discuss, listen and apply. They
look for problems and opportunities, and figure out what they need to learn to
be able to work on them. These are the Jennifer Dewalt types whose ambition
and discipline set them up for a continuously upward trajectory. They are the
ones who refuse to settle, and therefore end up as leaders in organizations
that innovate and change humanity.

It's funny because over the years I have developed what I think to be a very
reliable method for predicting someone's future success. The method involves
asking the person what they do in their spare time. Based on their answer, I
can picture where they will end up in five to ten years.

~~~
lsdafjklsd
I can just imagine how smug you were writing this, it's making me cringe.

~~~
dionidium
A lot of "you should do this" posts on the internet can be summarized as,
"people like me are pretty dang great."

~~~
danielweber
People who judge others are the worst kind of people.

~~~
enraged_camel
You have the right and the duty to judge the people in your life. This doesn't
make you a bad person. On the contrary, it's part of the human experience.

People who say they are not judgmental are the worst kind of liars, because
they lie not only to others, but also to themselves.

~~~
Jare
> People who say they are not judgmental are the worst kind of liars

You need to meet more, nicer people.

------
jorgeleo
"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!

~~~
jacquesm
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.

~~~
sharkweek
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
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.

------
adt2bt
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.

~~~
thenomad
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...](http://web.archive.org/web/20021217011704/http://blogs.salon.com/0001399/2002/08/25.html)

(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!)

~~~
adt2bt
You know, I might as well throw it up on a blog. I need writing practice,
photography practice, food shopping practice and cooking practice. It also
helps keep me motivated!

Thanks for the Julie/Julia project link. I have been considering going through
Thomas Keller's great books in a similar way as well. I have Bouchon Bakery,
and I've made probably 20% of what's in there. I haven't found anything that
disappoints yet.

~~~
thenomad
Cooool. Oddly, Keller was the person who sprang to mind for me too.

If you do this, definitely blog it and let me know - hughhancock on Twitter -
I'd love to read about how it goes.

~~~
gjm11
> Oddly, Keller was the person who sprang to mind for me too.

Then you will probably enjoy
[http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.co.uk/](http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.co.uk/)
whose author made every single recipe in the French Laundry Cookbook. (Good
writing, too.)

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

------
onion2k
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.

~~~
shubhamjain
>>>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.

------
tomasien
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
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.

------
danso
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.

------
luisehk
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.

~~~
sker
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.

------
baby
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...

~~~
Ixiaus
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...

------
BigChiefSmokem
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
Evidence of why I tend to lurk on HackerNews. Some of you lot are insufferable
sometimes.

~~~
joshbert
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
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.

------
thenomad
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

------
ddoolin
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
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.

------
lemonberry
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
I drew the graphics for the splash screen and donated my iPhone to the cause.
My two friends did the coding.

------
marincounty
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
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
"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.

~~~
BlackDeath3
Thanks for the background. I understand that there is more to "coding"/"coder"
than I implied, it's just seems that the words have become so appropriated
that I now instantly associate them with the whole "brogrammer" thing.

~~~
dllthomas
Well, I'm gonna try to hang on to it; it's what my parents used when I was
growing up.

~~~
BlackDeath3
Lucky you :)

------
andrewhillman
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.

------
reikonomusha
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.

~~~
bdon
I find this perspective odd because as a self taught programmer I didn't
bother learning or trying to learn any of the formalisms you mention like
'variables, strings, and symbols'.

I learned by having a concrete project goal motivated by personal desire that
I wanted to accomplish by any means possible. This usually came down to
copy/pasting existing code from the internet and fiddling with the values via
trial/error without necessarily understanding the inner workings.

I've had the experience of walking through the "Learn X the hard way"
programming books, as well as Codecademy, with some non-programmer friends who
ostensibly 'want to learn coding' and they invariably make extremely slow
progress like you describe, because without their own self-motivated project
it's just blind symbol manipulation.

~~~
reikonomusha
With respect to the formalisms bit: I didn't expect him to understand deeply
about those kinds of formalisms. I don't expect most beginning programmers to
care, even. But the conflation of the ideas was apparent in his (faulty)
intuition of them, and it impeded comprehension. In order to use a string, you
must, at some level, have some sort of understanding that it is data. How your
understanding manifests itself is different.

The copy/paste/fiddle process can work when you have some sort of
understanding _what_ to copy, paste, fiddle, _and_ search for. Developing that
understanding so quickly also leads me to doubt.

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

------
Tichy
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.

------
mcv
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.

------
fsniper
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.

------
jjoe
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?

------
sebkomianos
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.

------
rzc
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
It's getting difficult to justify coding anything else, though.

~~~
dllthomas
No it isn't.

~~~
dllthomas
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
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.

~~~
dllthomas
Well, I'm working in HFT - not very many exchanges speak HTTP.

Web browser tech itself quite obviously can't all be built as a web app.

A lot of things _could_ be built as a web app but it's plain silly to - I
don't want to lose access to my text editor when I lose networking (I could
run a server on my local machine, but that's several layers of abstraction
that clearly aren't necessary and I'm not confident they're helpful).

To be sure, there are lots of things where a web app is quite appropriate -
but a view that that's all there is seems myopic.

~~~
Tichy
I'd argue those are pretty niche. I certainly wouldn't focus on browser
development unless I worked for one of the three or four big browser vendors.

Text editors have been moved onto the web, and probably more and more text
editing is being done online, for example in Wordpress blogs.

Nothing against "native" text editors, but again, how promising would it be to
start out developing a new text editor these days? It still happens, but it is
rare enough to get the top HN slot when it happens.

~~~
dllthomas
Here's a secret - the vast majority of programming done in this world is
"niche" for some niche, web and non-web. It doesn't mean the relevant skills
are niche.

------
salemh
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"?

------
Tycho
_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.

------
Bahamut
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
If I may ask, what skills and how many projects did you have when you joined
as a junior?

------
djvu9
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.

------
latraveler
Thanks, my years of steady learning seems so lackluster now :P

Ryan --- [http://www.radiumcrm.com](http://www.radiumcrm.com)

------
jarnix
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.

------
mustapha
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.

------
mattyod
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.

------
nachteilig
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.

------
SkyMarshal
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
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.

------
scriptstar
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
She did:
[http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/archive](http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/archive)

~~~
scriptstar
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-...](http://blog.jenniferdewalt.com/post/56319597560/im-learning-to-
code-by-building-180-websites-in-180)

------
robmcm
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!

------
weames
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.

------
SubuSS
Very good stuff. Don't let up!

------
bjpcjp
Congrats to Jennifer. Much respect.

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

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

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

~~~
gohrt
[https://code.google.com/p/android-30days-
apps/](https://code.google.com/p/android-30days-apps/)

------
solistice
Congratulations on getting the 180 websites done.

------
tomekmarchi
That's just down right cool

~~~
zyngaro
Too bad it is most likely not true! But it's a down right cool PR move

~~~
bkanber
Why do you say that?

~~~
sergiotapia
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
It doesn't say she understands it, could just be a copy paste from a tutorial
right?

~~~
sergiotapia
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
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.

------
mustapha
Inspiring. Thank you.

------
Log1x
lol

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

~~~
JPKab
Your ability to be a dick is remarkable. You should be a mall cop, not a
coder.

~~~
antimagic
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
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
>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.

~~~
bored
Nailed it

------
contextual
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
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.

------
eulerphi
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
Really? HN is full of fluff, and this post is decidedly un-fluffy.

------
a3voices
If a man did this, would it generate the same publicity? I am genuinely
wondering, I'm not trying to troll.

~~~
ionforce
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.

------
ryanthejuggler
I know I'm changing this by posting, but heh.

[http://i.imgur.com/4s4tlwr.png](http://i.imgur.com/4s4tlwr.png)

