For the magic, at first.. When I had my first computer I was completely fascinated : "how this piece of plastic can do so much things when I press a button?" So I started to ask questions and to learn about what is coding.
Then, with my knowledge, I realized the power of the tools we are manipulating and from there I decided to use those tools to build a better world for everyone, to make their life easier and more enjoyable.
Kind of utopian and naive I know but I truly believe that our jobs are much more about people than it seems :)
I went to an interview for an internship which turned out to be mostly soft skills interview. When asked if I've done some programming I lied "yes".
They gave me 2 weeks to develop a POS application in java.
After the interview I went to the store bought a computer and started googling.
I got the internship :)
Thats how I got into programming.
How I learned to love it:
After some time, I realized that for every other engineering discipline you need to invest a lot in order to try things out, experiment, innovate...
With software you can pretty much do anything. The possibilities are limmitless.
I built my first website on geocities after my friend made one for his band. I was in and out of technical pursuits for a while until I had my first job after college. I did marketing at a tech company and saw how much more interesting the software job was than mine.
I sort of knew how to code and always loved it but had mixed experiences leading me to think it maybe wasn't for me. Luckily I got a bit of encouragement and really didn't like my other job all that much. Once I got over the hump I haven't looked back.
$$$... well that's not entirely true. I got into web programming specifically in the days you could "get paid" while surfing. In the process, I learned about web hosting via Geocities/Tripod/etc. and at the time I was using Frontpage to code up a site that was basically full of banner ads to get referrals. In the beginning I learned a lot from viewing the source of other sites and essentially copying and modifying. To this day I still learn a lot from other "smarter" developers via open source, articles, code samples, etc.
But I will say I got hooked early on and always enjoyed the process. Plus programming helped me progress with the evolution of the web and it continues to change which has its challenges but continues to be an enjoyable ride.
When I was 13 I started taking robotics classes. That was the first time I encountered programing in its simplest form.
Later on I started working on more complex systems what eventually got me into arduino, avr programing and c++.
At that time I also started high school which got me into contact with newer and more modern technologies like python and javascript. That was when I started mastering web development.
I now classify as a crazy teenager web developer who still eventually wants to build a robot that will exterminate human kind.
Gosh, I don't know if I have such a profound answer. I started programming when I was 10 years old back in 1995. My parents had bought me a little toy computer for Christmas that was able to compile and run simple programs written in BASIC. I don't know how I put up with programming on a one line ~40 character LCD display but that's what got me interested. I showed off to my friends my ability to write "password protection" (which just did an "if" check against a hardcoded password). As a kid I always loved seeing technology protect things (ACCESS DENIED was one of my favorite phrases). Now that I'm an adult I realize that crypto is a difficult beast and that I am not suited for making any significant contributions there but I still like reading about it. Two years after that I discovered HTML and made a simple web page on my ISP's free hosting space. I never really thought about the why of it...it was just a fun thing to do and continues to be a fun thing to do today.
I'd like to think it was about 2011 - 2012. I was probably about 10 years ago, and as with most Generation Z's, I grew up with a console. It was the Wii. As I played with it, I ended up getting bored with it's built in capabilities, and looked to branch out. This is where I found out about Homebrew.
I loaded it into my Wii, and was amazed at the new capabilities. As I booted up I saw some logging information and was immediately intrigued. I looked into the code behind it all, and quickly got lost, as it was C code. I decided to look more into easing myself coding, and looked at Windows Batch programming and creating websites.
That is what started it for me. As I grew up over the next few years, I tried experimenting with a lot. This includes Java game programming with OpenGL, PHP (Laravel), NodeJS(This is where I am focusing on currently), the C family, and even Golang.
I have gone through diverse phases, but web development always seems to capture my attention. I am also learning more and more about cryptography and security research. There is my story, and my first post here on dev.to!
Oldest comments (31)
For the magic, at first.. When I had my first computer I was completely fascinated : "how this piece of plastic can do so much things when I press a button?" So I started to ask questions and to learn about what is coding.
Then, with my knowledge, I realized the power of the tools we are manipulating and from there I decided to use those tools to build a better world for everyone, to make their life easier and more enjoyable.
Kind of utopian and naive I know but I truly believe that our jobs are much more about people than it seems :)
I've always had a slight interest in it, but never actively chased it. Then a requirement at work came up and I took my chance.
I asked myself: how I can apply graphic design to the web so I discovered HTML, CSS, JS and PHP and I loved it. period.
I went to an interview for an internship which turned out to be mostly soft skills interview. When asked if I've done some programming I lied "yes".
They gave me 2 weeks to develop a POS application in java.
After the interview I went to the store bought a computer and started googling.
I got the internship :)
Thats how I got into programming.
How I learned to love it:
After some time, I realized that for every other engineering discipline you need to invest a lot in order to try things out, experiment, innovate...
With software you can pretty much do anything. The possibilities are limmitless.
I built my first website on geocities after my friend made one for his band. I was in and out of technical pursuits for a while until I had my first job after college. I did marketing at a tech company and saw how much more interesting the software job was than mine.
I sort of knew how to code and always loved it but had mixed experiences leading me to think it maybe wasn't for me. Luckily I got a bit of encouragement and really didn't like my other job all that much. Once I got over the hump I haven't looked back.
$$$... well that's not entirely true. I got into web programming specifically in the days you could "get paid" while surfing. In the process, I learned about web hosting via Geocities/Tripod/etc. and at the time I was using Frontpage to code up a site that was basically full of banner ads to get referrals. In the beginning I learned a lot from viewing the source of other sites and essentially copying and modifying. To this day I still learn a lot from other "smarter" developers via open source, articles, code samples, etc.
But I will say I got hooked early on and always enjoyed the process. Plus programming helped me progress with the evolution of the web and it continues to change which has its challenges but continues to be an enjoyable ride.
When I was 13 I started taking robotics classes. That was the first time I encountered programing in its simplest form.
Later on I started working on more complex systems what eventually got me into arduino, avr programing and c++.
At that time I also started high school which got me into contact with newer and more modern technologies like python and javascript. That was when I started mastering web development.
I now classify as a crazy teenager web developer who still eventually wants to build a robot that will exterminate human kind.
Gosh, I don't know if I have such a profound answer. I started programming when I was 10 years old back in 1995. My parents had bought me a little toy computer for Christmas that was able to compile and run simple programs written in BASIC. I don't know how I put up with programming on a one line ~40 character LCD display but that's what got me interested. I showed off to my friends my ability to write "password protection" (which just did an "if" check against a hardcoded password). As a kid I always loved seeing technology protect things (ACCESS DENIED was one of my favorite phrases). Now that I'm an adult I realize that crypto is a difficult beast and that I am not suited for making any significant contributions there but I still like reading about it. Two years after that I discovered HTML and made a simple web page on my ISP's free hosting space. I never really thought about the why of it...it was just a fun thing to do and continues to be a fun thing to do today.
I'd like to think it was about 2011 - 2012. I was probably about 10 years ago, and as with most Generation Z's, I grew up with a console. It was the Wii. As I played with it, I ended up getting bored with it's built in capabilities, and looked to branch out. This is where I found out about Homebrew.
I loaded it into my Wii, and was amazed at the new capabilities. As I booted up I saw some logging information and was immediately intrigued. I looked into the code behind it all, and quickly got lost, as it was C code. I decided to look more into easing myself coding, and looked at Windows Batch programming and creating websites.
That is what started it for me. As I grew up over the next few years, I tried experimenting with a lot. This includes Java game programming with OpenGL, PHP (Laravel), NodeJS(This is where I am focusing on currently), the C family, and even Golang.
I have gone through diverse phases, but web development always seems to capture my attention. I am also learning more and more about cryptography and security research. There is my story, and my first post here on dev.to!
Simple, I wanted to be a god!