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That awkward moment when you realize you've been "coding" for 8 years

Hey Dev.to! πŸ‘‹

So here I am, finally joining this amazing community after lurking for... honestly, way too long. My friends keep telling me I should share more about my coding journey, and well, here goes nothing.

I was going through my old projects folder yesterday (you know, that chaotic mess we all have πŸ“), and I found my very first "professional" website from 2016. Oh boy. The cringe was REAL.

The humble beginnings of a serial bug creator πŸ›

Picture this: 19-year-old me, fresh out of high school, thinking I was hot stuff because I could make a div change color on :hover. A neighbor asked me to build a website for their cafΓ©, and I confidently said "Sure, $60 and it'll be done in a week!"

What followed was probably the most gloriously terrible website ever deployed to production:

  • πŸ“Š Table-based layout (yes, really)
  • πŸ“± Zero mobile responsiveness
  • πŸ“§ A contact form that didn't actually send emails
  • 🐌 Images that took 30 seconds to load on 3G
  • And my personal favorite: a JavaScript alert("Welcome!") every time someone visited

But you know what? The café owner loved it. And that feeling when he said "This looks professional!" - man, I was on cloud nine for weeks. ☁️

Fast forward through the chaos... πŸŒͺ️

The next few years were a beautiful disaster. I took on every project I could find:

  • πŸ’­ A "social media platform" for $200 (it was basically a glorified guestbook)
  • πŸ’³ An e-commerce site where I stored credit card info in plain text (please don't judge past me)
  • πŸ”§ Multiple WordPress sites where I edited core files directly (I know, I KNOW)

Each project taught me something new, usually in the form of "oh shit, that's not how you do it." I learned PHP by Googling error messages. I discovered MySQL through trial and catastrophic error.

Git? What's Git? I was team Final_final_FINAL_version2.zip for way too long. πŸ“¦


The breaking point came when I accidentally deleted a client's entire database. No backups. Nothing. πŸ’€

I spent 14 hours straight rebuilding everything from cached pages and memory. That night, I promised myself I'd learn to do things properly.

Plot twist: Getting my first "real" job πŸ’Ό

2019 hit different. Landed my first company job making $1,200/month (which felt like winning the lottery). Suddenly I'm surrounded by seniors talking about "design patterns" and "clean architecture" and I'm sitting there like...

guys, I literally just learned what MVC means last week πŸ˜…

Laravel blew my mind. Vue.js made me question everything I thought I knew about JavaScript. Docker? Game changer. Version control? Revolutionary. Unit tests? Life-changing.

But here's the thing nobody talks about - that transition from "hacking things together" to "doing it right" is HARD. Some days I missed the simplicity of just making stuff work, consequences be damned. πŸ€·β€β™‚οΈ

The imposter syndrome hits HARD 😰

Around year 4, I started attending local meetups. Listening to other devs casually mention microservices and domain-driven design while I'm still Googling "difference between abstract class and interface" on my phone under the table. πŸ“±

But slowly, things started clicking. ✨ I began contributing to conversations. People started asking for my opinion on technical decisions.

Wild concept: I actually knew things!

Where I am now (spoiler: still learning) 🎯

Eight years in, and I'm comfortable calling myself a senior developer. I can architect systems, lead technical discussions, mentor junior devs. But here's the secret - I still Google basic stuff daily.

Yesterday I literally searched "how to center a div flexbox" because I always forget the exact syntax. πŸ€¦β€β™‚οΈ

Some wins along the way: πŸ†

  • βœ… Built and deployed applications handling 50k+ daily active users
  • βœ… Mentored 6 junior developers (and learned as much from them as they did from me)
  • βœ… Finally stopped being afraid of legacy codebases
  • βœ… Started a small side business selling digital products (more on that journey another time)

Why I'm here on Dev.to πŸ’­

This community has taught me so much through your posts, tutorials, and discussions. Now I want to give back. I'll be sharing:

  • πŸ“š Real stories from the trenches (the good, bad, and ugly)
  • πŸ› οΈ Practical lessons learned from production disasters
  • πŸ’‘ Honest takes on technologies and practices
  • πŸ“– Maybe some tutorials that don't assume you already know everything

I'm not here to pretend I have all the answers. Half the time I'm still figuring things out as I go. But maybe sharing the journey helps someone else avoid some of the mistakes I've made. 🀝

Let's connect! πŸš€

What's your most cringe-worthy "first project" story? I promise mine's probably worse πŸ˜…

And if you've made it this far - thanks for reading! Looking forward to being part of this community.


P.S. - Yes, I still have that cafΓ© website in my portfolio. It's... educational. πŸ“š

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