[jenniferDewalt]

Just before I started the project, I looked around the internet for some resources to see what I was getting myself into. There are so many awesome places to get information out there. Stack Overflow, the Wikipedia, demos, tutorials, documentation. I spend about 10 hours a day working on the project and the vast majority of that time is me digging through those amazing resources.

[future_grad]

Just curious, how do you fund working on these projects 10 hours a day?

Good work on them. Perfect way to have a portfolio ready for the world.

[jenniferDewalt]

I saved up some money so that I could learn to code full time.

[Scaevolus]

Do you think your art background helped you develop the focus and dedication to work on projects for such long periods of time? Most programmers couldn't manage that.

[jenniferDewalt]

Absolutely! When making art, you often go through a 'research' phase where you make a lot of sketches, models, mock-up, etc. Most of it is garbage but at the end you've prepared yourself to tackle the real thing. I sometimes think of this project as a really intense version of that process.

[ihnorton]

You really should blog about this! 'Build one to throw away' is a common (very insufficiently applied, in my case) programming aphorism, but it would be neat to hear a take on it from an artist's perspective where you quite literally throw it away and there is no copy-paste between projects.

[jenniferDewalt]

That is a really great idea! I am definitely sticking that one in my queue.

[JackDanger]

I second the interest in a blog post. Jennifer, it's rare that someone develops an art background before programming so I'd love to hear your thoughts on the similarities and differences.

[kpennell]

I'm going to move to India to do just this.

[playhard]

Just curious. Where in India?

[moron4hire]

What on earth do you mean by this?

[kirklove]

Do you have a list of your favorite resources. Would be great to see that path... Like I built this and used this to learn. Fantastic job btw. Kudos!

[jenniferDewalt]

I don't have a formal list right now but I do have a folder full of random bookmarks which I'll do something with at some point. I always keep a window open with tabs to Stack Overflow, jQuery docs, Underscore docs, and Ruby on Rails Guides (if I am using Rails that day). I usually keep another window open with tabs to styling tools like http://www.colorhexa.com/.