New beginnings...

I've run into an interesting realization.

I'm not 'good' at front end development. But I am 'good enough' for everything that I've needed to do up until now.

The first web app that I wrote was back in 2005/6 - right around the time that AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) was beginning to catch on and interactive web development began to be commonplace. Up until that point I had always considered that JavaScript was a fairly useless language. In my defense, the main usage that I had seen for it was things like scrolling banners.

Because AJAX was so new - the first version of that app was written in PHP and it depended on full page submissions with completely new page loads to get the screen updates.

Luckily for me, the performance of the site was TERRIBLE. So, I went searching for alternatives. And, I found out that another of my old prejudices was about to be destroyed.

For a bit of history, back in the mid-1990's Applets were the main way that I saw for creating interactive applications on the internet. Applets were Java applications that were basically sent from a web server and then run on your computer. Through applets you could completely control the user's experience of the interface including better interactivity. I found applets a terrible way to build user interfaces and because I thought that they were the way Java was going...I stopped learning Java.

Well, flash-forward to the time that I was beginning to write the second version of my app and I rediscovered Java. Applets had not 'died' yet - but the main use of Java (at least as related to the internet) was as a back-end for websites that left the presentation and interactivity up to JavaScript and CSS with AJAX providing the communication pathway between browser and server.

I instantly fell in love with the potential of programming this way. The heavy lifting was done back on a server with the horsepower needed to handle it and the presentation and user interaction was distributed out to each user's computer! It was beautiful and elegant.

So I started learning Java and JavaScript.

But this kind of learning is purpose driven - I had an app to develop. I learned what I needed to build that app (plus some extra that I found out after learning wasn't needed).

That app is still in production today. I don't remember just how large the code base is today in thousands of lines of code. But it is a lot. Through it's life I have either been the sole developer or one of two. Since I haven't had anyone to take over - it got stuck in time and there has not been time to do any significant rework.

Well, all of this has probably been terribly interesting but I've gotten a bit away from where I started. That being the fact that I realized that I am not particularly good at the front end side of development. But, because of where I've worked I have had to wear all of the development hats: analysis, design, coding, testing, infrastructure, database admin, ... Not an easy environment to be able to develop deep skill in any particular technology (or even to keep up). So when I discovered the hashtag #100DaysOfCode - I seized on it: I am a full stack developer and I will update my skills!

Well, I'm not a newbie but it is very easy to feel like one. I finally started using the Twitter account that I created back in 2008 and discovered that there is a whole world of really good developers out there. And among them are many who are extremely generous with their time and knowledge.

I'm working on sharpening and updating my skills. But hopefully I can find things that I already know that might help others while I'm doing that.

So this is my new beginning at blogging. I'm going to focus fundamentals for now. And as I find more contemporary topics they will either be worked in or just dropped in.

I hope that you are able to find something worth sticking around for 😁

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