Hello, Dev Community!
I'm Ryan Rhode, a freelance web developer with over 25 years of experience. My journey started way back in 1998 when I developed my first website for my high-school and around the same time another one for a co-op placement. Over the decades, I've had the opportunity to work on a diverse selection of projects, contribute to open-source communities, and evolve with the ever-changing landscape of web technologies.
I began my career as a freelance developer in 2003 and have since built and maintained WordPress sites for individuals, small businesses, non-profits, and franchises. My expertise includes custom app creation using PHP, JavaScript, Python, Java, open-source contributions, and problem-solving using whatever tools are available.
One of the highlights of my journey is working on revitalizing the Million Dollar Script platform since 2010. I found it and noticed the original developer had moved on to other projects and open-sourced it and was looking for someone to take over the project. The community was really upset and was looking for help so I decided to reach out and I've been working on it in my spare time ever since. This project has been a cornerstone in my open-source career, where I've not only maintained but also rewritten it as a WordPress plugin. I'm also working on rewriting it from scratch to be more efficient and more extensible and offer the features people have been requesting all along.
In 2010 I also created a Minecraft server and several plugins for it. I released many of those plugins as free and open-source plugins for the community. I ran this server for exactly 1.5 years after making it public. During that time I worked on the plugins to enhance server functionality, security, and user experience. Running a Minecraft server allowed me to foster a wonderful community with dedicated volunteer staff who helped test and provide feedback on bugs and custom features. We developed the most amazing community together and I am forever grateful for those experiences.
I've also built some other interesting projects over the years. One of them was a song fingerprinting and playlist platform built using PHP and Python. It involved some complex backend processing where it would take a YouTube video, convert it to mp3 and fingerprint it to discover what song it was, get it's genre and categorize it under that genre on the website automatically. It would allow users to vote on their favourite tracks and create playlists.
I also have been working on a pixel art collaboration tool that uses Node.js and Python. It's integrated with Shopify and runs through their platform.
I've done so many other things I can't even mention them all. I really enjoy it and I'm always excited to work on new and interesting things. It really drives me to do my best when working on creative projects with friendly clients that give me room to do what I think is best.
I'm mostly self-taught. I graduated from secondary school in 1999 and gained early web development experience. I was always interested in new technologies. I also completed several online college courses toward a website design certification, focusing on HTML/CSS, JavaScript, Java, and other web-related technologies. Sadly, right as I was about to take the final course for the certificate they decided to change all the requirements and no longer offered the course and I would have had to take several more courses and I decided I would just go learn all of that myself. And so I did. And I'm still learning new things every day. I love it.
My passions include open-source collaboration, AI experimentation, game modding and development, and helping others solve complex problems, often for free. My goal is to build scalable open-source projects, improve the Million Dollar Script platform, and find sustainable ways to fund development through premium extensions or consulting.
Thank you for reading my journey so far! If you have any questions or want to collaborate on a project, feel free to reach out.
Take care of yourselves!
Ryan
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