My GF learned to code in 3 months. This is what she came up with.

by mntmn • 14 years ago

309 108 14 years ago

ZephyrP• 14 years ago

I'll just come out and say it - I'm jealous of you.

This is a good example of how people should learn coding. Not doing examples but doing something that is very goal directed (for her doing a website). Exercises should help you understand how to do a final goal. This is pretty impressive for only 3 months of study also.

sreyaNotfilc• 14 years ago

I've been bugging my friend that he should learn to code a website for the past few years. And for the past few years, he's been stating that "its not for me" or that "I'm not the techie type". I hear this all the time from people who don't know anything about coding.

A few months ago I showed him a demo of my website (artJutsu.com WIP) and showed him the basics behind the code. I also showed him how to create a simple site. The dev site (on my laptop) has many different concepts that I'm still hammering out. To him it looks complex, so I told him that it doesn't have to be.

I gave him the following advice for why one does create a program. "Just think of a "simple" problem that you'd like to fix. It doesn't have to be super robust, or super smart, or super technical. Just try to solve this problem through an elegant interface."

For me, artJutsu (once I get the main part completed) will solve a variety of small problems. Yes, there are things in it that is very complicated, but that comes from research. We're in an amazing time as developers where we can access a rich array of resources just with a simple Google search. The great thing is, the simplest solution usually solves the problem just as well.

I always was the type of person that hated reading those coding books and doing lesson after lesson with very little getting done. For the most part, you don't really know WHY you need to know techniques and theory. Its just way too confusing. I find getting down and dirty building something teaches you a lot more. Theory is great, but what good is it if you don't know that you need to know it? I believe that getting your feet wet will enhance the traditional learning experience.

Anyway, after a month of coding, my friend has created a pretty good "list" site for his wife. He's at the point where its getting tough to maintain his code, but he loves it. The joy of creating a useful tool to solve a problem is what we thrive on.

DavidSch• 14 years ago

She has a lot of skills for 3 months.

voodoochilo• 14 years ago

keep her!

iveney• 14 years ago

Seriously? 3 months to know so many things including what Richard Stallman says ... admire.

feverishaaron• 14 years ago

Can you ask her to outline the process she used to learn to code this tool?

mntmn2• 14 years ago

Basically, for ruby and javascript we had (very informal) coaching sessions together roughly once a week (around 2 hours each). I would walk her through core syntax problems (how to use functions, objects, arrays) and give her some hints of what APIs to look for. And then she went and researched and tried a lot of stuff (sometimes more than 8 hours a day) and would ask me when she got totally stuck. I would then try to not give direct answers but hint at where to look for or how to develop some sort of divide-and-conquer strategies. And then I was kinda amazed at the results ;)

acoyfellow• 14 years ago

I wish I had a buddy like you!

yesimahuman• 14 years ago

Great execution, that's what it's really all about!

brianmckenzie• 14 years ago

This is really impressive for three months, and the little charts on her skills page are funny!

Homunculiheaded• 14 years ago

I really like the skills section http://nukaco.la/skills.html I wish this was standard practice for resumes, even though it's subjective assessment it's really easy to compare relative strengths and weaknesses, for example it's very easy to see "dabbled in haskell, very proficient in garage band" just by glancing

famousactress• 14 years ago

Came here to say the same thing. I think it's an incredibly effective visualization.

oacgnol• 14 years ago

I typically just list things I've worked with, no matter the experience level. I like to do so because then the interviewer has to ask about them in an interview, where I'd then get a chance to (subtly) showcase my knowledge and enthusiasm.

From my own anecdote: I had an interviewer ask me about something I had listed in my resume (but not related to the job position). It made for good conversation and allowed them insight that they otherwise wouldn't have seen with a straight technical question.

Edit: Hopefully I didn't go off topic with my comment, but I also think the graphic indicator was a clever and very straightforward way of expressing experience level. It just doesn't seem very space efficient if on a paper resume.

nwienert3• 14 years ago

I like it, but in 3 months she got 2/5 in rails, 2/5 in javascript and 2/5 in git? I doubt thats even possible...

I've been working with each of those for ~6 years and I'd still only put myself at a 4 and if I was being generous. It's funny the longer you work with something the more you realize how little you understand it. I probably would have put myself at a 2/5 in those categories 5 years ago, but looking back, I'd rate myself at 1/5 instead.

xxpor2• 14 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect

arockwell• 14 years ago

I think you should look at 1-5 or 1-10 scales logarithmically. It doesn't take a whole lot of work to become basically competent in a git or Rails (2/5), but to become an expert (4/5) takes exponentially more work.

aliz5• 14 years ago

Well, I didn't know there was a standard... for me it just felt "I know more Javascript than Haskell etc" so I put one more black square. So maybe I should change it to 2 out of 7 or whatever. :/

moolcool2• 14 years ago

You have to be reasonable about the scale. A 4/5 in English by your standards would also imply a deep understanding of root languages, old English, literature etc...

Hominem• 14 years ago

I had an interview that asked me to rate various skills on a 1-5 scale. I think I gave myself a 1 in t-SQL and a 2 in C# even though I had been programming professionally in C# since the .NET beta SDK. I was worried they would pull out some crazy trivia questions and and try to trip me up if I rated myself too high. After I rated myself so low they almost didn't want to continue the interview.

I think most places are not like google where if you say 4 it means you invented the language.

tedmiston2• 14 years ago

As if rating one's skills in a particular subject with a 1-5 rating under no context bears much meaning... it's so arbitrary as to be insignificant (but it could be a cool concept if not abused). It also depends on one's motivation for representing their skill level; for example, jobseekers probably overestimate their skill levels.

It would be great to have a standardized rating system based on a few different tiers wrt a language/framework/etc.:

  1 - Wrote some really basic code in the language
  ...
  5 - Wrote some really, really advanced code in the language

ptbello• 14 years ago

--the longer you work with something the more you realize how little you understand it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacognition

dyselon• 14 years ago

She's clearly a World of Darkness fan.

pooriaazimi• 14 years ago

I like it too. One thing though: I think it should've been OSes, rather than OSs: http://english.stackexchange.com/q/3348/21816

FuzzyDunlop• 14 years ago

I disagree, because of the subjectivity. For some things, it's fine, but for others, I don't think it's an accurate reflection.

For example, what actually quantifies 1/5 of Ruby? And does a 5/5 rating mean you know absolutely everything about it? Is 1/5 of Ruby the same as 1/5 of Python, or soldering, or speaking Icelandic?

There's also no improvement from 5/5, but even a master of their craft will know there is always room for improvement and greater mastery.

That demo has a lot of javascript going on, and she rates that 2/5. I don't think that demo is trivial to implement, and on relative terms I can assume that she's more than just dabbled in Haskell and Python.

We know she's German, so she puts 5/5 in German language, as it's her native tongue. If that was the base, does that mean she's as fluent with Garageband and Logic as she is speaking?

I don't think skills are so easily quantifiable, and I'd much prefer to see a qualitative analysis of those skills. Otherwise, I'm just looking at a meaningless pattern of shaded boxes on a page.

tikhonj2• 14 years ago

Another approach could be to normalize everything against your best skill. So rather than saying "I'm this good at X", you're saying "I'm about half as good at X as I am at Y."

I think the tricky bit would be making your intentions obvious.

I actually took a similar approach on my résumé: I broke my skills up into categories relative to each other rather than vying for some absolute quantification.

mikeryan• 14 years ago

From an interviewer's perspective though these kinds of ratings are still useful. They just need to be calibrated.

If I were hiring this person it would take less then 10 questions about one language to figure out where her competency is according to my scale and now (assuming she didn't fudge too much) about her competencies with others (some of which I may not know).

joelhaasnoot2• 14 years ago

I found it hard to figure how my resume could summarize the breadth of my knowledge. I ended up putting a table up with "Good knowledge of", "Some knowledge" and "Worked with" in my resume, listing each skill under one of the three headings. Gives a pretty general idea. Then again, during interviews for the job I'll be starting soon no one asked me a single technical question.

powatom• 14 years ago

If it's a technical job and nobody asked you a technical question - you're probably better steering clear!

goblin892• 14 years ago

It looks neat, but I'm not sure it would help her find work, if that was the purpose of it. People seem to be more likely to find and hire you when you're easily classifiable—say, “JavaScript front-end developer”, or “Mixing engineer”.

I'm sure many people are good (or could be good) at many unrelated activities. I had an idea of personal portfolio that would encompass all of my interests and work, too. But in the end I chose to market myself as “just” a programmer. Knowing about my proficiency in Logic or InDesign or playing piano won't help anyone looking for a programmer, and if by chance I rate my Python skill lower than InDesign or, say, OS X skill, I'm pretty sure it will turn away many paying clients.

I decided to go with discrete “brands” for various activities. Failing at that currently, though (hard to manage).

tomkin• 14 years ago

> It looks neat, but I'm not sure it would help her find work, if that was the purpose of it.

If this is true, we live in a truly depressing world. I don't understand the point of an interview any more. I sit down, lie to you for an hour, you Google the shit out of me, stalk me on Facebook. But if I tell you who I am honestly? Trash bin.

cjbprime• 14 years ago

Awesome work!

gourneau• 14 years ago

Wow she is awesome. This music hack day project is intensely beautiful http://nukaco.la/projects.html It is a musical umbrella! That synths sound as it is hit by water!

verganileonardo• 14 years ago

She learned all by herself?

rmoriz• 14 years ago

Actually she might learned to code in 3 months, but shes coding much longer I guess. e.g She wrote in her XING profile that she started studying informatics in 10/2010. Despite that, consider marrying her :)

aliz5• 14 years ago

Yup, I started studying bioinformatics in 2010. I chose bioinformatics, because I was interested in biochemistry and biology and wanted to learn how to code. To my disappointment uni did not teach me much practical things and programming courses (Haskell) were really boring. I would find myself sitting over a really dull homework in the middle of the night thinking "It's so stupid and boring. I really don't want to do this. I want to do more fun stuff... like coding a game or so.". Well trying to code a game in Haskell turned out to not be the best idea. Especially if you don't know how to code yet... and then I just stopped going to classes. 3-4 months ago I wanted to make a band, but had a hard time finding musicians. So I decided to learn Rails and HTML etc to build a web application which could help me (and others) find some musicians. In the end I never really officially launched it but learned a lot and found that I enjoy coding. :)

ysangkok• 14 years ago

Don't blame it on Haskell. Everyone has to learn the fundamentals. Haskell is suited for making games, it's just not the mainstream language for that. See http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Frag . Yes, 3D games have lots of tricky state handling and OpenGL doesn't map well to Haskell. But doing a point-and-click adventure in Haskell is not harder than doing it in C++.

I really doubt your classes were stupid and boring. Maybe you were the one who was stupid and boring :P

lucian1900• 14 years ago

I'm learning Haskell using http://learnyouahaskell.com/ and I don't find it boring at all. Nowhere near as boring as homework.

mntmn2• 14 years ago

Thank you all for being so nice! :')

TazeTSchnitzel• 14 years ago

I liked some of her other projects more, like the little Maniac Mansion thing, or her Rails app haveband.

pyre• 14 years ago

I think this might be a one-off case, as she mentions RMS as a reason for not being on Facebook or Twitter.

mikecane• 14 years ago

Turn On -> Nyan Cat. LMAO!

Edit: I should have included the URL for context: http://nukaco.la/maniac.html

ph0rque• 14 years ago

I personally like how nyan cat becomes vampire cat when you turn off the light...

petitmiam• 14 years ago

I can't find the key to the safe

edit: I'm having too much fun.

henryboston• 14 years ago

Care to share how she learned so quickly?

brianlovin• 14 years ago

I'm most impressed with the 8-bit sound umbrella.

ezhux• 14 years ago

I saw that umbrella in Amsterdam @ MHD. Sadly, they just showed how it worked but not how it was made.

raverbashing• 14 years ago

Really, really?

Congrats to her

I remember doing "something similar" in MSX Basic about 20 years ago =)

mxfh• 14 years ago

hach lukas. sweet.

SquareWheel• 14 years ago

That's really incredible. I love the Skills page, very creative.

The only thing that bothers me is that I can't select text... A little unnerving, actually.

weslly• 14 years ago

Hard to believe, i'm really impressed.

martindale• 14 years ago

You have an awesome and intelligent girlfriend. Congratulations.

dmor• 14 years ago

Aliz, this is awesome and your bf is awesome for supporting you in learning to code. Also - speaking ANY Icelandic is kind of a big deal! Hope I'll meet you sometime

arnarbi• 14 years ago

> speaking Icelandic is a big deal

Only if you are not Icelandic. :)

mattchew• 14 years ago

Great work. Also, nice site name. :)

ziggrat• 14 years ago

I think your gf is your hand. However, very nice work.

tlrobinson• 14 years ago

Can you tell us how she/you went about learning to code?

prophetjohn• 14 years ago

Almost invariably when we see posts like these on Hacker News, the person actually had prior programming experience, but just happened to start taking it serious for the last [small number] [unit of time].

Thus is the case here. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4050952

However, it's impressive for a first project. I hope you stick with it.

scotty79• 14 years ago

Title is misleading because your GF was utterly awesome before that.

leke• 14 years ago

I'm insanely jealous of your gf. I've been doing programming as a hobby for nearly 10 years and haven't knocked out anything as cool at that. Nice skills section too. I might make that as an extra attachment page to my CV. Ask her, Python or Ruby and why for me.

fadliawan• 14 years ago

In 3 months I've only got how to create data types, functions, and conditionals. Haha.

krzyk• 14 years ago

3 months of programming and already had a glimpse of Haskell, I'm really impressed. I'm struggling to find time to learn it a little, and during the last 10 years since I first heard about it I hadn't had enought time (the only haskell code I "do" is xmonad.hs :)

xiaoma• 14 years ago

Daniel Tammet learned to speak Icelandic in a single week. Unfortunately, like your girlfriend, he didn't share much of a guideline for others working towards similar goals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMz3gjl9x-M

angry-hacker• 14 years ago

Well she is clearly tech savvy lady: http://nukaco.la/projects.html So probably it was not very hard for her =)

teatang• 14 years ago

Nice! The skills section is really nice! And please take care of your gf, she's awesome! :')

lwhi• 14 years ago

I think it's great work - but why does the developer need to be introduced as 'my GF'.

She's clearly very technically capable - why not introduce the site on it's own merits?

joesunga• 14 years ago

It's amazing how much folks can learn in such a short amount of time. I wonder if she was learning full-time or on the side.

My GF learned to code in 3 months. This is what she came up with.

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