Hacker News Reader

Comment by ultimatedelman | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

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.

+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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com