And 14 year old me couldn't have been more proud. Complete with a huge banner of flaming text at the top and the finest effects the early WYSIWYG editor could produce, I thought I had conquered the internet. You could say my tastes have changed slightly since then, leading to the more minimalist approach I take now.
Thankfully that old website is lost somewhere in the archives of the internet now, but ultimately I'm so glad I made it; doing so sent me on a journey of discovery and pushed me to begin learning everything I could. First it was the drag-and-drop monstrosities, but soon, after weeks of begging and pestering, I convinced my parents to buy me a book on HTML and CSS and started building "real" websites. So many tables.
Within a few months I had moved on to PHP and MySQL, and it was only then that I discovered my real passion for code was back-end architecture. Building the core functionality that sat below the surface, doing all the magic behind the scenes and abstracting the user experience, seeing dynamic webpages that offered unique user experiences come to life, it all gave me the kind of satisfaction I was looking for in HTML and CSS that had always seemed just out of reach.
By the time I turned 16 I had built my own LAMP server and taken on my first major project: a PHP based customizable, module based web portal. A friend and I spent our summer nights in a Dr. Pepper fueled haze coding wildly, and when it was finally finished... It was buggy and clunky. But we were proud regardless, and it was the catalyst we needed to push us to the next step. That next step for me was taking on the real beast, C++, which after several months of banging my head against the wall became my white whale as I set it aside for a while, learning JavaScript instead. A much better primer into the world of real programming languages.
In my late teens, life, work, and relationships got in the way and I drifted from my passion to pursue other career goals that ultimately left me feeling unfulfilled. Coming around full circle now and immersing myself into this world once again has reignited my passion for learning and for life. I wake up every day excited to get up and write some code (and drink some coffee), bringing the ideas that bounce around in my head to life.
Get in touch, let's grab a coffee and talk code. Maybe we can work together to bring your ideas to life, too.