This is a submission for the 2026 WeCoded Challenge: Echoes of Experience
I stood on stage in front of a nearly full cinema hall that had been converted into a conference venue for the day. My slides filled the enormous screen behind me. Bright white lights shone straight into my face, making it almost impossible to see the audience.
I had been preparing for this talk for several weeks. Not because the topic was difficult. Quite the opposite — I knew it very well.
But there was something else in the back of my mind.
How do I convince the audience to trust me?
I am not a programming celebrity. My last public talk had been more than five years earlier, and I was pretty sure nobody remembered it. And, if I'm being honest, I don't exactly look like the stereotypical senior developer or team lead.
More like: “Where did she even come from?”
Of course, all of this existed only in my head. Conference audiences are usually wonderful and supportive.
Still, the thought kept returning. There had to be a simple way to win them over.
And then I realized I had the perfect story.
I began my talk about migrating legacy systems to modern frameworks.
I started with a few sentences I had memorized — a classic tip for public speakers: memorize the beginning, and the rest will flow.
Then I said:
“I actually know quite a lot about legacy systems.
I built my first website when I was twelve.
HTML 4.01. Framesets. Visitor counter. Guestbook.
No CSS.
But who needs CSS when you can have falling snow in winter?”
On the slide behind me appeared a screenshot of that ancient website — or rather a reconstruction of it, because the original had disappeared somewhere in the depths of the early internet.
The audience burst out laughing and applauded.
I breathed out in relief.
After that, everything flowed easily. The presentation went well — even I have to admit that, and believe me, I am my own harshest critic. A few people came up to talk afterward, some congratulated me, and a couple even quoted parts of my talk later on LinkedIn.
It was a wonderful moment.
But to understand why that joke worked so well, we need to go much further back in time.
The Internet at the Turn of the Millennium
Poland, late 90s.
Our first PC ran some old version of Windows that had to be installed from floppy disks. The monitor was a huge CRT beast that took up half the desk.
Connecting to the internet was a whole ritual back then.
First you clicked the dial-up icon. Then the modem began its strange mechanical symphony — screeches, whistles, and metallic noises that sounded like two robots arguing through a telephone line.
While the modem was working, the phone line was dead. If someone tried to call us, they would just hear an endless busy signal.
And the internet was expensive.
I had a strict limit: fifteen minutes per day. If the phone bill was too high at the end of the month, my punishment was simple — no internet the following month.
And as you probably remember, pages loaded painfully slowly back then.
After yet another expensive month, my father announced that he was deeply disappointed in this whole internet thing. If he had known I would just waste time browsing strange websites, he never would have arranged access in the first place. Maybe it was time to disconnect it altogether.
I was terrified.
But that threat also inspired me.
If I loved the internet so much, maybe I should create something on it.
Building My First Website
I downloaded an HTML course onto the hard drive — reading tutorials online was out of the question with our connection limits.
I still remember how exciting it felt. I studied the tags and built my first pages with flushed cheeks and total concentration.
CSS either didn't exist yet or wasn't widely used, because I didn't touch it at all. Everything relied on attributes like fontSize and fontColor.
One of the biggest design achievements of the time was something called framesets — splitting the screen into multiple HTML files and navigating the site that way.
The topic of the site was obvious to me. I was fascinated by space, especially the Solar System — which, at the time, still had nine planets. 🥹
Eventually I needed hosting and a domain name. Naturally they had to be free — we are talking about a website built by a twelve-year-old.
To his credit, when my dad saw how passionate I had become, he quietly stretched the fifteen-minute internet rule so I could keep learning.
Finally, my creation went live.
I was incredibly proud.
The Email
So did I live happily ever after, climbing the ladder of a successful programming career?
Not quite.
A few days or maybe weeks after launching the site, I sent the link to my cousin, who was a year older and also loved computers. My cousin had a friend — three or four years older than me — who, in my eyes, was a true computer genius.
He probably was objectively good. A few years later he went on to study computer science at one of the best universities in Poland.
And, if I'm being honest, I also had a bit of a crush on him. Apparently I have always had a soft spot for nerds. 😅 (To be honest, today I don't even remember his name.)
A few days later he sent me a long email.
In polite language, he absolutely destroyed my website.
He wrote things like:
“This website is cluttering the internet.”
“You can immediately tell it was made by a twelve-year-old.”
“You should probably just delete it.”
I remember staring at the screen in silence. My face went hot.
I didn't delete the website.
But I also didn't keep learning to program.
Quite the opposite — the email discouraged me so much that I completely stopped. And I had such ambitious plans back then.
If I had shown that message to my parents, they probably would have laughed it off. But I was too embarrassed, so I kept it to myself.
Until now.
Coming Back
Looking back today, I don't even blame that boy.
If he somehow remembered sending that email, he would probably shake his head in disbelief.
Eventually, as you can see, I returned to programming. By the time I was fourteen, I was already building websites that didn't just clutter the internet — they even earned me a bit of money.
And yet sometimes I still wonder what might have happened if that message hadn't clipped my wings.
Maybe I would have become a professor at MIT.
Maybe the next Mark Zuckerberg. 🤣
Of course I'm joking. Most likely my career would have turned out exactly the same as it did — which, honestly, is not bad at all.
But I still think about that twelve-year-old girl staring at the screen.
And sometimes I wonder how many future developers end their story right there.
A Small Lesson
Constructive criticism is one of the most valuable things we can receive as developers.
But there is a difference between helping someone grow and convincing them they should never have started in the first place.
Every developer begins with something imperfect. Something messy. Something amateur.
Something like a twelve-year-old’s website with framesets, a guestbook, and falling snow.
The lucky ones simply never receive an email telling them to delete it.
Top comments (6)
This was such a great read, Sylwia. Your description of the dial-up modem ritual took me right back to my own childhood. I can still hear that awful mechanical screeching in my head, not to mention the absolute panic of running up the phone bill. It is funny how universal that experience was. 😂
As for that older nerd who wrote you that terrible email... well, considering how things turned out, I would say he seriously missed out. His loss, our gain. I am really glad you did not let him stop you from building. We definitely need more falling snow on the web anyway.
Haha, exactly — shared experiences of old (sorry… I mean experienced 😄) developers!
And yes, I have no idea why the trend of falling snow in winter disappeared… it clearly deserves a comeback. Although fun fact — on the homepage of the component library I have to use at work, it was actually snowing this winter 😄 so maybe there’s still hope!
This isn't just a story about coding. It's about every person who ever started something new, only to have someone try to tear them down.
How many future developers end their story right there that line stopped me. Made me think about my own journey, and how one cruel email could have ended it before it even began.
You're absolutely right. There's a huge difference between here's how to improve and 'you shouldn't have started.' The first builds bridges. The second burns them.
And that conference moment? Seeing you on that stage, telling this story, getting that applause that was the ultimate comeback. Not to that boy (who probably doesn't even remember), but to your younger self who needed to hear that she belonged.
Thank you for sharing this. It will give courage to so many beginners who need it.
Thank you so much for this beautiful comment — it truly means a lot to me 💜
And yes… in my case it turned out well in the end, but it really could have gone the other way. That’s what makes it a bit scary when I think about it now.
How many people hear something like “this isn’t for you” at the very beginning — and believe it? And then just… stop.
That’s why I wanted to share this story. Because sometimes the difference between continuing and quitting is much smaller than we think.
Honestly, the email says more about the sender than about you.
It reads like peak teenage overconfidence mixed with a bit of “internet expert syndrome” — very blunt, very certain, and not exactly subtle.
What stands out is your reaction. You did get hit by it — which is completely normal, especially at 12, when you’re proud of something you built and someone just tears it down. That kind of cold shower can sting.
What matters is that you didn’t stay there. You processed it, stepped back, and kept going. That’s the part a lot of people (even adults) struggle with.
If anything, this kind of moment is almost a rite of passage in tech — running into someone who feels the need to question your legitimacy.
The difference is what you do after. And you clearly turned it into something constructive.
Bit sad story about perfectionist coder who did not see trought the imperfections, even that is created by you in so young, finally you are here!
Congratulation for the speeaks in Conference.