As someone with a design background and now work mostly in development, something I learned about myself is that I am now convinced that every single 'web designer' in the known universe should be forced to make a full HTML site (tools of their choice!) that is compatible back to IE8 (bonus points for IE6) and 'mobile friendly'.<p>Plus accept that web pages are not the same as printed pages.<p>Wait, that's not all about me learning about myself though. Maybe my background and my current job has given me a less accepting attitude towards 'web designers' that don't learn the canvas they are attempting to paint on?<p>Sometimes I do feel bad about it though.<p>Oh! I also should have done more coding in college.
She says: "The thing I was missing is that math is just a bunch of symbols that you manipulate to get new symbols out. Coding is basically the same thing. The meaning isn’t in the math or the code itself. The meaning comes from the interpretation of the mathematics or similarly, what your code is doing for someone."<p>This is, I think, the most important thing to understand about mathematics, and failure to understand this leads to the travesty that is K-12 mathematics education in the US. I find it impressive that she came to this conclusion on her own, having started as someone for whom "Math was never [her] favorite subject".
I check in from time to time and am continually impressed with her cycle of innovation and release...amusingly, if you check her repo, the way she's structured the app is basically batshit crazy (creating a controller for every new app, even though each app is mostly static HTML and JS)...but hey, it works, and it works well, and just goes to show how imperfect implementation isn't the end of the world.<p>(her controllers directory in the repo: <a href="https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/tree/master/app/controllers" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jendewalt/jennifer_dewalt/tree/master/app...</a>)<p>And yet, not knowing exactly how to structure things is enough to hold back novices and experts alike. The OP just plowed through -- devoting a half year of her life to this -- and will have made more web-sites (or thingies) than I'll make in a lifetime, and doing it for self-enrichment. If only more people had that same attitude.*<p>* Yes, she's lucky that she has some situation where she can devote a huge chunk of her life to exploring web dev...but it's not as if everyone has to do the half year route...Doing a simple web-page/widget/app a week, or every two weeks, is a manageable commitment for people who are already in the online/web industry.
I can totally relate to her thing about typing. I've been coding professionally for nearly 20 years and can't type for shit. My theory is that typing code is not like typing words in sentences in paragraphs in [whatever]. Code is not structured the same (not always "<i>word</i> [space] <i>word</i> [space] <i>word</i> [punctuation]"). Code is not as linear as an email or story (well.. not the same kind of linear anyway). Code uses a totally different ratio of symbols/numbers/letters/etc (I type more dollar signs and under_scores in a <i>day</i> at work than in a whole <i>month</i> not at work). Well... that is my theory anyway.
Definitely impressed by her tenacity and creativity. But if I were to do the same for self-enrichment reasons, I might go a different route. I'd rather build one or two full-blown apps in 180 days so I can dive in a deeper depth. After all, quality is better than quantity, isn't it?<p>Though she definitely has inspired me to do something similar.
I was a bit overwhelmed by the many samples that I clicked on.<p>Someone else posted a link to her GitHub repo and I was glad to check it out some. I chuckled at her using of Ruby/Rails. I was amazed at her using of jQuery.<p>It pains me to note that what the industry might consider sound software engineering is so detached from the creative tools that she has employed to get this going.<p>On one hand the industry demands greater quality from their tools. On the other hand the industry seems eager to provide the creative tools used by amateurs-alike to help to get people trained in the tools that the industry might need.<p>JavaScript really is a puzzle that the industry has been trying to solve. Because JavaScript is far away from what the industry might consider sound engineering principles. But users of JavaScript could make for great employees, so the industry has been trying to figure out a way to create a bridge between the two.<p>Keep up the great work! I liked playing the Hangman.<p>Cheers.
I have not unfortunately experienced the typing thing (my typing speed is getting faster), but I can definitely say my appreciation for compact functions and mathematics has increased a great deal.<p>I would also add to the list:
1) In my day-to-day life, precision has become more important. It's tougher for me to accept imprecise statements as they often reflect incomplete knowledge which, as we all know, will lead to "bugs" or lots of head-banging
2) Logical problem solving skills have increased right in line with my debugging effectiveness.
3) As walls of abstraction get torn down through application of technology and programming, I find it harder and harder to identify and describe technology to non-technology users without cringing (see number 1)
I learned to code 3 years ago-- I've worked professional in it for 2.5 years. A couple of changes I've had (that occured fairly early on) were:<p>1. A nitpicky eye for detail. Even in my non-coding life I seem to be just a bit more detail focused than I usually am.<p>2. Tenacity and willingness to 'jump in'. I think this was always a strength for me but now, as long as I'm not totally stumped, when I find something (a bug, or a new thing I'm curious about) I will just dive in and explore.