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Comment by apalmer | Hacker News Reader

I definitely see your point, but from her description she spends 10 hours a day on this excersize. I could see that level of progress given those constraints, 10 hours a day every days for a month and a half is insane dedication.

On the other hand that level of dedication seems to indicate that apparently she has some kind of OCD, no disrespect just wild speculation.

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i'm not saying that this feat of creating 180 websites in 180 days is impossible. it's highly improbable and takes a very unique mix of dedication, intellect, funding, and, well, nothing better to do for half a year, but that's for someone with a background in coding. my beef is that this person is claiming to come from a completely non-programming background and has not read any books or taken any courses. i don't care if you spend 24 hours a day coding, you can't write a program as complex as MS Paint in canvas in a month if you've never written a line of code in your life. There are just too many intermediate steps missing and progress is just too fast.

I would love to be wrong about this, but seeing as I've been doing this for a really long time, this just smells funny to me.

+1 ultimatedelman, I've got your point. This kind of "effort" is very rare and in most cases smells like copy-paste from somewhere.

Look, I'm not saying that jenniferDewalt is a fraud (and I'm not calling shenanigans), but she must keep in mind that some people will say that her work is just a copycat and she must deal with it.

IMHO, she did a very good job! I really liked it.

Indeed -- I find it kind of hard to believe that someone with truly zero programming experience knows what github or even knows what source control is.

I have no doubts about the main thrust, just some details seem as if they are embellished.

Github and source control are the very first things out of my mouth when someone expresses interest in programming. They were the first things that were recommended to me. I basically say to go get set up on github and walk through the tutorials, and 'follow' me while you're at it. Instant community feeling and the new programmer can always Stack Overflow 'how to revert my last commit'. It's low-hanging fruit to get set up.

Next, I usually suggest grabbing an introductory reference and a bunch of small projects (usually my go-to is Project Euler) in the language of their choice. What she's doing is exactly what I'd recommend if you were brand new and wanted to get a feel for the landscape.

well, nothing better to do for half a year

Yeah, this is the real fishy part. Sure, it seems like she has some previous programming experience, at minimum. Using "public" and "private" in javascript having no previous Java/C++/C# experience, or without having copied-and-pasted it from somewhere is odd. Big deal, though. She's promoting herself.

But why? If I had that kind of dedication, it wouldn't be on a tedious gimmick. It's much more sane to have one or two big ideas. She's fighting chicken-sized horses that's for sure.

Perhaps she's just really, really smart.

Erm, isn't 10 hours a day approximately one full-time job?

If she's, say, taken a six-month sabbatical to learn to make websites, this seems eminently reasonable and doable without speculation about mental illness.

10 hours a day, 7 days a week, for almost 6 months

While it is far from a definitive diagnosis, it isn't 'normal'.

Without a doubt it is ambitious, and her progress thus far impressive!

If only we all had 10 hours a day for a full 6 month period to spend pursuing ambitious goals ...

Shrug. Maybe it depends on whom you hang out with. Personally I spend a lot of time with successful entrepreneur and creative types. This sort of focus and commitment, whilst it's definitely laudable, isn't abnormal amongst that crowd.

"Maybe it depends on whom you hang out with."

...and your existing bills and how you are able to pay for them.

I've got a 1 hour commute each direction, and an 8 hour a day, soul-sucking, brain-energy-sucking job. (HN is sanity retention medicine for me.) By the time I get home in the evening, fix dinner for the kids and me, eat, catch up with the family, etc. I don't have a lot of time or energy for anything else.

Well, obviously you don't hang around with the cool kids, then. :)

Also doing it out of a paid-for shared workspace. I mean, I love the stuff she's doing, it makes sense that she'd be able to do it working full time, but she must be independently wealthy to be able to afford it.

Or just taking a sabbatical.

I know a fair number of people who have retrained at University for another career, for example. Most of them weren't independently wealthy - they'd just saved up enough to be able to afford to go to university for a year.

Edit: that's exactly what Jennifer says she's been doing, above - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6098083

Good stuff! Well, it seems to be working.

I know nothing about Jennifer or her lifestyle. But it is not that hard for a young, single person whose main activity is being productive to save up 6 months of living expenses.

Use of shared desks costs like $200 a month at places like Citizen Space, so it's not like that's a bank breaker.

If she had a family it would make less sense. If she were living a 'baller' lifestyle, drinking and partying every weekend, it would make less sense. But if she's an unattached workaholic, her life probably costs very little and no independent wealth is required.

It doesn't take much to save $10,000, which is more than enough to fund 6 months off work to learn something.

I've never been diagnosed :)

yet?

Every artist I've met and respected has been very dedicated to their craft and efforts to make many things right in every one of their many, many works. If you go to a college like DigiPen or Fullsail, or any of the other gaming arts/engineering institutes, you'd see a similar workload, maybe even higher.

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