As you may have seen from my first post, my name is James. I’m a long-time hobbyist programmer, a current software engineering student at Flatiron School, and life-long nerd. And this post is all about ME!
I know, not a very interesting topic. I want to get on to the fun stuff too, but I thought it important for me to begin this blog with a proper introduction. This way you, the reader, would be know a little more about me and my background. Don’t worry though, after this post we’ll get right into the nerdy stuff!
At the time of writing this, I am 27 years old and I’ve been programming for a little over a decade. My father was a programmer turned network engineer and my sister was a system administrator for a time. Although being a computer nerd seems to be an inherited trait in my family, I didn’t consider learning about computers until I was introduced to programming via an Introduction to Computer Science course at my high school. I took this extra-credit course simply because it sounded interesting. I didn’t know anything about computers at the time other than how to turn one on.
During this course I learned my first programming language, Visual Basic. Yes, the dreaded and now defunct language that every introductory programming course seemed to use at the time. After learning this language for a year and seeing my progress and enthusiasm, my teacher decided I was ready for the big leagues – C++. I was given a large C++ textbook and told to give it a go by myself as sort of a self-study program. After making command line apps in C++ for a few months, I began to look back fondly on my days learning Visual Basic and making Windows forms applications. I decided to continue learning Visual Basic and make whatever programs or games I wanted with it.
This is when things really took off! Up until this point, I had only programmed what my teacher or a textbook told me to. Once I made my first program from scratch I was hooked! I fell in love with the mix of creativity and problem solving that only programming can offer.
My first program was an interactive piano that could teach you to play simple songs as well as record songs of your own. I then went on to make simple games for my friends, like Pong, Asteroids, Block Breaker, a Mario-like 2D side scroller, and an app that will help you find a date to the prom. My friends seemed to enjoy the little programs I made and I greatly enjoyed showing them off. To this day, one of my favorite things about programming is making software that I can share with others.
After 2 or 3 years with Visual Basic, making silly programs and stretching that language, using it in ways the original authors didn’t intend or would recommend, I decided it was time for something new. I started learning many new programming languages like Python, PHP, JavaScript, C, some x86 assembler (don’t ask why), and most recently Ruby. Each successive language I learn gives me a deeper understanding of what it means to be a successful programmer.
Around 6 years ago I decided to make my first website. The purpose of it would be to allow me and my friends to stream our favorite show. Sort of like our own personal Netflix, but only for one show. I learned how to write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, as well as, PHP. I wrote the backend in PHP without using a framework simply because I didn’t know they existed. The site worked as intended (despite the spaghetti code lurking underneath) and my friends enjoyed using it. Since then, I have made many more websites and most of my focus has been learning more about web development.
I have known for years that I wanted to become a professional web developer. In 2020, during the absolute chaos of the coronavirus pandemic, I decided “better late than never” and took steps to make that dream a reality. I have enrolled myself in the Software Engineering course at Flatiron School in order to help me make this transition. I’m hoping that, once I graduate in 2021, I will be able to get a job and get paid to do my favorite thing – make websites!
This blog will serve to document my journey along this path and I hope you come along for the ride. Thanks for reading this entirely-too-long blog post. Now, on to nerdy stuff!