Thanks for feedback everyone! This was obviously pretty rushed since I actually timed myself doing it, so feel free to submit a PR here: https://github.com/smilli/makethisinanhour.
Also update on the most important thing: My friend did end up making his website :)
Hmm I guess I haven't done that in a really long time, but I remember years ago running into issues because local files wouldn't reload immediately when I made changes to them (cached?) and have avoided it since. Don't know if other people have ever run into this?
This is so true. Steadily working on a long-term project is so much more valuable than writing shitty code that you won't look at again for 24 hours every few weekends.
disclaimer: I don't think there's anything wrong with what Berkeley focuses on. My favorite classes here so far have been discrete math & probability/stochastic processes. What I do think should change is the emphasis employers put on coming from a top cs school. And also I wanted to point out that for students whose goal is to become a software engineer, learning stuff outside of school is extremely valuable since the curriculum doesn't focus on what's important for them to get a job right now.