jenniferDewalt

I had tried picking up textbooks and online courses before I started the 180 project and none of them stuck for me. While I could do the exercises, but I never felt like I was understanding how to actually use the skills I was learning.

With the 180 Websites project I was forced to figure out how to apply code to make something function. I didn't always know exactly how things worked, but by starting with small manageable tasks I was able to have a pretty good understanding of what I was doing. Pushing forward, day by day, the things that were a bit hazy started falling into place.

During the project I had to travel from San Francisco to Pennsylvania for family obligations. I managed to do a pretty good job of keeping my coding schedule up while flying and spending time with my family, but I ended up having to stay up pretty late to finish each day's website.

By the end of the trip I was really burnt out but I still needed to crank something out on the flight home. I had an idea for a site where you could enter a few hexadecimal color codes and the screen would transition between them. It seemed totally easy in my sleep deprived state but when I started working on it on the plane I totally floundered.

When I finally got back home to my apartment in SF, it was 9pm and I had virtually nothing to to show for my day's work. Also, I was now freaking out. I didn't know how I was going to be able to push up anything!

I took a look at what I originally wanted to do and what little I had done and realized if I reigned in my scope a bit, I could get a website out before I completely lost my mind. I pared it down to just two colors and cut out all the bells and whistles and just barely managed to get it out the door. And then I had a very, very nice sleep.

Thank you! Pieter is awesome :)

Right on!

Thanks! Yes, repetition is super helpful. Before starting a new project, many artists will go through a 'research' phase where they'll make quick iterations of ideas over the course of days or weeks. That's part of where the idea for the 180 Websites project came from.

Thank you!

JIRA is a great tool but it's hard to set up and for small teams it can be overkill. We built Zube to provide an Agile workflow right out of the box so you can get up an running right away.

Zube is also deeply integrated with GitHub and everything is synced both ways in real time. So even if some of your developers want to stay in GitHub, everything is still up to date.

Thank you! I did a lot of Googling. Each day I would break down what I wanted to do into small components and start researching. I used sites like Stack Overflow, Mozilla Developer Network and CSSTricks to find answers and a lot of trial and error to get things working. I also used Michael Hartl's Rails Tutorial to get up and running with Rails.

I had a lot of fun working on the 180 Websites project. It was grueling at times but pushing something live everyday was super satisfying. My favorites are Electro Bounce, How We're Feeling and Elevations.

I love working on Zube now. It's awesome to be able to make a product that helps developers.

I was spending an average of 10 hours a day, every day on the 180 Websites project. For YumHacker, I was working on that full time for about 6 months or so. We've been working on Zube for about 1 year now full time.

Hey everyone! I'm happy to answer any questions. AMA!