Hi! I’m glad you found this, my first hashnode post. I’ll get the important details out of the way quick; my name’s Alexander, I’m a writer and law grad, also the titles a bit of an exaggeration- I will not be learning a hundred languages, internet or human. But I do have your attention yes? I’ll keep this short. A quick google search says there’s over 7000 programming languages- and counting. Only 100 of those languages are used on the World Wide Web and that’s where I’ve chosen to start my journey becoming a programmer. Never been much of a math guy, so object oriented languages for building web interactions seemed like the best place to start.
Little over 5 years ago a uni student had an “idea”. He would build an online platform that verified the credibility of internet-entrepreneurs, make it safer to transact on the web. Simple enough, but after weeks of research, talks with developers, talks with potential investors and a bit of soul searching our student realized the cards he was dealt fell painfully short of the challenge. Beaten but not defeated he took stock of his blessings and moved on with life. Ideas are only worth so much and without finances or the proper skill set, ultimately building is impossible.
Fast forward to Covid. The world I changed fast, remote-work boomed like never before. Fast forward to the Russia-Ukraine war and it’s endless ripple effects on the financial markets and world economies. Fast forward to the Luna crash. To tonight as Liverpool loses the ucl to Real Madrid (again). Through a whirlwind of experiences our student’s grown and painfully figured out the obvious; “I can”. For whatever reason it’s taken so long for it to “click”, the circumstances are right and the eureka moment’s finally happened.
You’ve read this far so I’ll go ahead and introduce you, our student is me. A bleeding blundering bum who’s got a way with words. I’m the furthest from perfect, and that’s to put very mildly. I will never be perfect and the big picture is, however I feel about that truly doesn’t matter. But I’m not all bad. In the month and a half since I picked up front-end web development I’ve learned HTML&CSS. I’ve started JavaScript, after that I will get into web3 development and Solidity. I’ve made friends with much more experienced programmers, from Singapore, from India, from Denver, from London. Amazing people. I feel like a child exploring a new hobby, with every successful code run without error I do a little dance and get excited for the next challenge. I wake up each day with purpose. My mind’s a flurry of ideas and new models. I’m learning. I’m happy (I use the term very loosely- but i am). Empowered. I’m still a while from my first real project but it’s not so impossible anymore.
This was supposed to be brief so I’ll tie it up right now. If you’re reading this here’s to learning. Here’s to growing. Here’s to achieving dreams. Here’s to finding purpose. It’s never easy going outside your comfort zone and I’ve had many bad days. But truth is nothing great ever happens inside of comfort zones. Here’s to progress. I’m hardly a pro but I’m getting closer than ever, soon I’ll be creating platforms that add value. Before that happens though I’ll do my best to keep you updated on my journey. Feel free to contact my socials. Finally, our world today is full of problems just waiting to be solved, here’s to us having fun while we’re at it.
Cheers.