30, Code, and Life

#startup #go #indiedeveloper #javascript

The Passion and Solitude of a Coder

“Lie to me if you must, but don’t ever leave me.”

— from the song Kiếp Đam Mê
That lyric has stayed with me for years.

It speaks a truth most people try to deny — we are all bound by our passions, whether it’s love, work, or the quiet rhythm of code running at 2 AM.

At 30, I finally understand what purpose means — what life means.

I’m grateful to still be here, still writing these lines.

There are things in my heart that words can’t quite carry — not because I don’t want to share them, but because I’ve never been good at explaining what I feel.

Thank you, youth.

Thank you, failure.

They’ve both taught me that success is never easy.

I’ve learned the value of effort — those sleepless nights chasing a broken algorithm, those endless loops of debugging where a single misplaced character can ruin your logic.

While the world rushes to build AI Agents, I’m still here writing my own generator algorithms.

I move slower — not because I lack skill, but because I see things differently.

I’m a code addict.

A Sunday coder.

A Golang Indie Hacker.

10 Years of Coding, 5 Years Building a Web Framework

What I love most about programming is control — the quiet power to shape the rules of your own digital world.

Only recently did I truly understand this:

“There’s no right code — only code that fits the model.”
There’s no best technology, no safest solution.

The only thing we can control is how we write code.

I don’t judge anyone’s approach — because really, who am I to judge?

While others chase the next trendy framework, I dig into the foundations — the core mechanics beneath the syntax.

When others build a website in five days, I spend five years building mine — and it’s still unfinished.

I’m not built for business.

I’m built for craft.

I once did SEO purely through code — the one thing I do best.

And when people discuss high-level technical strategies, I realize how small I still am — how much there is left to learn.

When the world uses AI to generate entire websites in seconds,

I’m still here, typing each line manually, step by step…

Because what matters isn’t what you see,

but what you understand beneath it.

Golang – The Blue Mouse

If someone asked me, “What is Golang?”

I’d say:

“It’s a little blue mouse running concurrently through the clouds — through pipes.”
I love the word pipe.

Ever since I studied Angular, I’ve been fascinated by RxJS — those elegant “eels in the water pipes.”

Sometimes the water pressure breaks everything, but that’s what makes it alive.

I love code.

I love algorithms — from the simplest to the most intricate.

But how do you explain to someone that you might need a million dollars just to run them?

It sounds crazy — yet if someone did invest that, it’d be pretty cool. Haha.

Skill and Wealth – Two Different Worlds

My brother once asked me:

“Quốc, you’re so good at what you do — so why aren’t you rich?”
I didn’t argue.

Because I know — being good and being rich are two entirely different things.

They just happen to start with the same letter.

After five years coding alone, I’ve learned this:

Technologies change.

Languages evolve.

But problems — and the drive to solve them — remain.

We keep looking for tools to make us faster,

but sometimes forget the things that make us steadier.

My dream began a decade ago, when I was a 20-year-old kid obsessed with technology.

“Technological Independence” – A Small Dream

People talk about big data, cloud computing, and e-commerce.

But have you noticed?

E-commerce isn’t really ours anymore.

“War or e-commerce” — is there really a difference now?

I once heard that at Big Tech, developers aren’t allowed to use frameworks.

I don’t know why — but I like that idea.

Even more, I’d love to meet others building small, handcrafted components in Vanilla JS.

But who would pay you for a JavaScript file you spent a whole month writing?

I once spent an entire afternoon creating a single loading SVG.

When someone asked, “You spent all afternoon on that?”

I just smiled.

I’m not as talented as people think.

I’m just someone learning as he goes — someone holding on to his own small dream.

Tomorrow there will be new algorithms.

But today — today is beautiful. 😁

My Life as a Golang Indie Hacker

My slogan:

“An independent Golang developer with a dream of technological independence.”
At 30 — half a lifetime, by my grandparents’ measure —

I’ve made mistakes, learned lessons, and yet still carry the same foolish dream.

If destiny is written at birth,

then maybe I share a thread with Steve Jobs —

because when he turned 40, I was born.

I have two teachers I’ve never met:

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

— Leonardo da Vinci

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

— Steve Jobs
In the end, we’re all the same — just humans trying to find our purpose, our happiness, our mission.

NOTES

Article originally posted in 2024 and reposted.
AI-powered translation.
Read the original Vietnamese version here: https://hnq.vn/blog/30-tuoi-code-va-cuoc-doi