How I got my first client

Kenneth Quiggins — Tue, 08 Jul 2025 21:39:06 +0000

My journey into web development has been a bumpy road, to say the least.
When I first started, I believed I would get my associate’s degree, learn how to program, and magically land a job. Well, I was in for a rude awakening. Programming is hard—and anyone who says it isn’t is lying to you. Sure, the fundamentals are straightforward, and almost anyone can learn them. But actually building software? That takes time, trial and error, and a lot of failing and rebuilding.

In my naive, delusional brain, I earned my associate’s degree and started applying to jobs. After months of getting zero traction with my resume, I noticed a common thread across most developer roles: almost all of them required a bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field. So, back to school I went.

The entire time, I was building projects in my free time, active in Discord servers, and soaking up everything I could about becoming a better developer. I finished a coding program, Code:You, a program in my city and was in college at the same time 😬 (This was rough, but worth it). When I finally graduated, I was full of energy and momentum—I couldn’t imagine any team not wanting to work with me.

Now it’s 2025. I’ve got a bachelor’s degree, solid coding skills, mentoring for Code:You, and the will of a warrior ready to go to battle on any codebase. There’s just one problem: AI has reshaped the industry, and the job market is intimidating for new developers. I’ve spoken with every career coach and developer I know. I’ve submitted so many resumes that my head is spinning. At one point, I got desperate—ready to throw away my dream of becoming a developer or tech professional.

So I posted on LinkedIn, X, and Facebook, offering freelance work—designing webpages or doing anything tech-related. BOOM! I got a hit. And ever since, I’ve been doing odd jobs here and there for nonprofits, for-profits, and companies around my city. I'm not where I want to be yet, but I am slowly getting there and haven't given up on my dream.

The key to this story? Never give up. Network with everyone you can, and make sure people know you’re available—because no one can read your mind. Keep posting your work on social media. Join communities like Code Connector or Discord servers like traversmedia’s (Brad Traversy's)—the advice I’ve gotten from these groups has been invaluable and has kept me moving forward.

Thank you for reading, and Happy Coding!

Binary Search

Kenneth Quiggins — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 17:10:11 +0000

Welcome to this tutorial on implementing a Binary Search algorithm in Python. In this tutorial, we'll learn how to use the Binary Search algorithm to search for an element in a sorted list or array.

Algorithm

The Binary Search algorithm works by repeatedly dividing the search interval in half until the target element is found or the search interval is empty.

Here's the basic structure of the algorithm in Python:

def binarySearch(list, item):

    low = 0
    high = len(list) - 1

    while(low <= high):
        mid = int((low + high) / 2)  # check middle element
        guess = list[mid]
        if guess == item:  # found item
            return mid
        if guess > item:   # guess too high
            high = mid - 1
        else:              # guess was too low
            low = mid + 1
    return None

Here, we define a function called binary_search that takes two arguments: an array or list arr and a target element target. We initialize two pointers left and right to the start and end of the array, respectively. We then enter a loop that continues until left is greater than right.

Inside the loop, we calculate the midpoint mid of the search interval using integer division. We then compare the target element with the middle element of the array. If they are equal, we return the index of the middle element. If the middle element is less than the target, we update the left pointer to mid + 1, effectively narrowing the search interval to the right half. Otherwise, we update the right pointer to mid - 1, narrowing the search interval to the left half.

If the target element is not found after the loop exits, we return -1 to indicate that the element was not found in the array.

Example

Let's test our function with some sample inputs:


arr = [1, 3, 5, 7, 9]
target = 5
result = binary_search(arr, target)
print(result)

In this example, we define an array arr of integers and a target element target that we want to search for. We then call the binary_search function with these arguments and store the result in a variable result. Finally, we print the result to the console.

If we run this code, we should see the output 2, which corresponds to the index of the target element in the array.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we learned how to implement the Binary Search algorithm in Python. We also learned how the algorithm works and how to use it to search for an element in a sorted list or array.

Complexity