Topic: [ARCHIVE] Get to know your fellow coder

[makeshift_theory]

Okay well since I haven't posted about me:

Name: Chris
Age: 21
Location: Florida, Jacksonville
Job: Web Anaylst/Developer

Technologies: PHP, ASP, Javascript, AJAX, XHTML, HTML, CSS, VB, C, C++.
Database Technologies: Access, SQL, MySQL, SQL Lite(If that counts), Oracle.
OS Operating In: Unix/Linux Ubuntu (Dapper Drake).
Dev Software Used: Emacs / Scite / Good ol' Terminal.

Interests: New technologies, pet's except birds GAH HATE birds, drumming, anything related to music, console gaming, board gaming, ping pong, building computer, building servers, managing servers, harrassing my fiancee......that's about it haha!

[dustinnoe]

I'm 26 years old and I live in middle Georgia.  I've been "playing" with php/mysql for about five years now.  I am in the Air Force but I'm not sure I will be reenlisting next time around.  My goal with the web would be to own several hobby based community websites that generate enough ad/donation/fee revenue for me to live on.  That would be the life, just kick back, maintain the sites, and learn more and more about web technologies.  I am also big into the stock market.  I love to crunch company numbers and determine it if is a good buy or not.  I seem to be getting fairly good at it, according to my yahoo portfolios anyway.

[Scriptor]

I guess I might as well start here! My name's Tamreen, I'm 16 years old. I've been working with PHP since June 2006. Doesn't sound like a long time, but I'm at least proficient. Right now by biggest project is an Ajax and RIA framework that lets you make sleek and advanced web apps with nothing but PHP, it's called jPOP, and it'll be at version .98 really soon, today or tomorrow.

[dustinnoe]

I guess I might as well start here! My name's Tamreen, I'm 16 years old. I've been working with PHP since June 2006. Doesn't sound like a long time, but I'm at least proficient. Right now by biggest project is an Ajax and RIA framework that lets you make sleek and advanced web apps with nothing but PHP, it's called jPOP, and it'll be at version .98 really soon, today or tomorrow.

Got a link to this jPOP thing.  I googled it but only found Japanese pop music sites.

[roopurt18]

My name is Rob, I'll be 27 in March, and I live in Lake Forest, CA.  I've been a die hard video gamer my entire life, which is what got me interested in programming.  For the longest time I thought I wanted to be a lawyer, but one day during my sophomore year I was playing games and thought to myself, "Or maybe I could make these things."  So I suckered my grandfather into buying me Teach Yourself Visual C++ in 21 Days and started chugging away with MSVCPP version 1 or 2.  I made it up to references and pointers before I started devoting more time to my social life and put programming on the back burner.  I picked it up again my senior year by taking Visual Basic 5.0 classes at the local community college.

When it came time for college, I had this crazy notion that if you didn't go to UC you're just wasting your time.  So I applied to 4 UC schools and didn't get accepted into any of them and was all prepared to spend a couple years at CC before transferring.  Then I get this acceptance letter from UC Santa Cruz, a school I didn't even know existed, and ended up going there.  I consistently lead most of my CS courses when it came to tests and assignments.  However, I dropped out after three years due to mild depression; I couldn't stand the city itself and I was in a long distance relationship and it was really taking it's toll on me.  So I returned to So. Cal. thinking my girlfriend would be happy to see me and that I could take a little time off school.  I guess I didn't seem like such a hot prospect, going from top-of-my-class student to bum who just wanted to play video games, because she dumped me.  O.o

Fast forward just a bit and I had applied to CSU San Marcos but was denied on the notion that I'd not taken writing and public speaking, even though I'd finished all but one of my GEs at UCSC.  So I was back in CC taking those and eventually made it into CSUSM.  A few more years of CSUSM, most of which I spent as a waiter in a Newport Beach restaurant named Taco Rosa and playing WoW, and I got my first programming job just a little under a year ago.

Ironically, in the almost 10 years I've been in and out of school, I'd never taken a PHP or database class.  Since I wanted to program video games, I took graphics courses, A.I. courses, and added a minor in physics to my degree.  I once said that web developers get paid way too much money for what they do, especially considering how easy it is.

Getting into a video game company proved a little more difficult than I had hoped (big loss for them!), so I started looking at other types of programming jobs.  Lo and behold an entry-level PHP / MySQL position 5 minutes from my house.  It was the one and only position I ever managed to get an interview for and I landed the job.

After a year of working there, I still stand by my original comment concerning web developers: I'm way overpaid for what I do and it's not terribly difficult, but that's not a complaint!  I've since read as many O'Reilly books on javascript, php, MySQL, etc. that I can.

So officially I've programmed / used:
c, c++, visual basic 5.0, pascal, assembler, HC11 (motorola assembler), php, javascript, SML, MySQL, openGL, directX, and probably some that I've missed.

Some of my favorite school projects over the years include:
* A queue in assembly
* Writing a compiler for a subset of the c language
* OpenGL game - for this one I argued with the professor for 2 straight weeks to be able to work alone, which he stoutly counter-argued it was too much work for one person.  My game ended up being a tie for the best in the class, if not the best.
* A refrigerator that learned your grocery habits, this was for an A.I. course.  After giving my presentation I sat down and this guy gives me a blank look and says, "What the fuck man?  You show up like 4 times the entire semester and your project is the best?"
* Building a simple CPU on a breadboard (part of my physics minor)
* Building a small robot (also part of my physics minor).  Indeed if I hadn't acquired such a distaste for institutions of higher education I'd probably pursue a degree in computer or electrical engineering.

As for my personal life now, my fiance and I own a small condo together in Lake Forest.  Like I said, I'm almost 27, she's 22.  She's going to school full-time for accounting.  When she finishes we're toying with the idea of moving somewhere with cheaper housing and having kids.  We have no wedding date set as of yet, so don't bother asking.

I've been thinking about teaching a course at CC in programming.  I've always been that guy in class where people would ask me for help before the teacher / professor and I'm quite good at explaining things.

That's more about me than most people know, so I'll leave it at that for now.

[rofl90]

Hi i'm 13 i've been coding for around 3 years, quick learner, ahead of my school. After a year school IT lessons became to easy, so I was on the point of mental corruption until I started hacking. I haced into school servers and changed various details got an admin account, I was never caught but my inquisitive mind took me out of the sickening world of hacking and I went clean, I've been able to control myself now & I'm learning several new languages, i'm not the best listener, but I hope I can improve in this vastly populated community.
Thanks 

[DangerM0use]

Thought i'd better say hello as I've been getting a lot of help the past few weeks.
My name is Liam I'm 20, 21 in May and I'm from Leeds, for those that don't know that is north England in Gods own county of Yorkshire. I'm a second year student at Teesside University (That's even further North, about 2 or 3 hours from Scotland depending on how fast you drive!) studying Business Computing. The bad thing is, one module is web scripting which involves a lot of code so you'd think I know more than I do, but this year is the first time i've ever really looked at PHP and Pearl, and all other programming languages come to think of it!
I play Rugby League for the uni and for a small team called Jarrow Vikings, just outside of Newcastle and this is my main interest, love the game to bits! I'm moving down south to London in July to start a placement year with Glaxo Smith Kline and I am really looking forward to it. Luckily there is no programming so I should be OK! 

[thorpe]

until I started hacking

Probably best to actually learn what hacking is before you go bantering those sorts of comments around.

[Koobi]

somehow i feel a little paranoid posting this stuff on a public message board but...what the hell

i will be 26 this year. i was born and raised in Sri Lanka. i'm about 5"5' and around 135lb the last time i checked.

i'm usually pretty laid back although i tend to oscillate between either extremes in everything actually, not just mood

i've been playing basketball ever since i was about 10 years old. played for school and college as well and i can't live without it. i play as regularly as i possibly can. unfortunately i'm a little short for a ball player so i have to make up for it with my jump :/

i love music...especially conscious hip hop, preferably pre 2000 conscious hip hop that address things that happen in actual life. i was actually a member of the first hip hop group in Sri Lanka. we performed a few times and did a few tracks but that was over a decade ago. the other guys are out of the country, i'm still here and started hitting the studio again about 3 months ago. seems like a lot of us are into music here, on this forum...although i can't compose a note or arrange music to save my life, i've been rhyming ever since i could remember.

i love playing pool/snooker. i'm not so great at snooker but i love pool.

i'm obsessed with staying in shape...wouldn't call myself a health freak seeing as i eat anything that walks and anything that doesnt but i like keeping in shape.



my weekends are usually boring because of a tiring day at work. but weekends are always different every week. i go white water rafting as often as i can.






as for the PHP related side of things, i work for a Sri Lankan IT company that provides IT services for a US based company. my main role is the Tech Lead/Project Manager for a PHP/Apache/Oracle based project. this project has been about a year in the making so far and it's going well. my team consists of 7 PHP developers with a varying range of skills. i think i was hired just because i knew some Linux and i use PHP often. very few people are into PHP over here. it's mostly MS and ASP people :/

the only thing i hate about work is that i have to come in early everyday since the client is in the US and we are 12 hours ahead of the US so i have to chat to the client everyday in the morning before he goes to bed.

i have no real formal education. didn't even do my A/L examinations...i believe that's the equivalent of a high school diploma in the US? i'm halfway through my IT degree but i have to come to the US to complete that (this august, hopefully. probably Austin, TX since i can continue to work with my client there). not so crazy about doing my degree either but hey, it's the paper qualifications that count these days, not experience or knowledge, unfortunately :/

i've worked with PHP since...2000 i think. it was an ex moderator of this board that influenced me to use PHP because i was a moderator at another board he was an admin of. it was Jon Kriek.
i also did some C++ in school. i have a fair knowledge of C++ but not enough to actually say that in real life
i was heavily into CSS and XHTML for a while. i'm familiar with MySQL, Postgres and have had to begin using Oracle recently.


i started using Linux OS exclusively about 3 years ago and i love it although i have an incredible amount to learn but i'm looking forward to it.

i've been trying to get Zend certified in PHP 5 for the last 3 months or so but i'm a slacker plus work has been heavy.





i think i've typed a lot so i'll stop.




by the way, why don't we all post pictures too?



my flickr page

[TecBrat]

I'm 34, born in Indiana, first computer was a Commodor 64. (for you young-uns, that was 64k of ram). I learned BASIC on that and (after moving to Florida before my freshman year) a TRS80 (Trash 80), then Pascal in HighSchool.
Took a bizarre twist of logic and joined USMC and got a medical discharge. Worked as an order taker for a shopping channel, then moved to service then tech-support. While there, I had access to a windows for workgroups system with qbasic on it. I re-learned how to program on it, bringing out some memory of Pascal from my highschool days.
A friend needed some PHP work done, and he had seen some tricks I could do with *.bat files, so he believed in my ability to learn. He hired me and I quit the shopping place. (I had worked there 14 years, but only 96-2000 were tech related).
That's enough about my geek background, personally, I am married and have 1 eleven year old daughter who makes straight A's in school. All three of us are very active in our church. We attend every Sunday, and every Wednesday. I work the sound station, my wife works the bookstore, and my daughter sings in the children's church praise team. We try our hardest to live the life, walk the walk, not just talk the talk. We aren't perfect at it, but no-one is. We love God and he blesses us every day.

Tired of reading yet? I'm tired of typing.
God Bless and Goodnight. (Or good day, or whatever...)

[Anna23]

Hola!

my name is Anna and I am 18,5 years old - and have just jumped into php waters - ahh - what a refreshment in the last moments of highschool...

In half a year I will study computer science - so now it's misison - study, girlie! well, let's do the best.

... cause it all gets easier if you have a vision I want to create a project when learning - thought about a fashion community for me and my friends... wellie wellie - I am a girl, too... and fashion is my passion + computers!

Alrighty, hope we're gonna be good partners - cya everybody!!!

Muak,
AnnA 

[Voldemort]

This is just a wild guess, but I think my name is Steven. As a junior in high school, I don't really remember much, but I do remember that I'm around six feet tall, and weigh... let me go stand on a scale (I forgot)... 140 with my laptop, which I forgot to put down, and 135 without.
 
Computer-wise, I'm a late starter...

Spring 2005 - XHTML
Summer 2005 - PHP
Fall 2005 - Javascript

Summer 2006 - Flash
Fall 2006 - Java (AP Computer Science AB)

Spring 2007 - Java (AP Computer Science AB)
Fall 2007 - Either C++ or Ruby

As you can see, I go through languages a bit fast. I don't ever get wildly proficient at any one language, I just build upon what I know to do bigger and better things. If I ever decide to do anything with this, I'll probably learn the more advanced features of each language, but until then, I'll settle for what I've got under my belt.
 
Oh, and about Java... even though it says it was an AP class for school, I was the only one doing AB (as opposed to A, which had a dozen people in it), so it was pretty much a teach-yourself thing, which was best after all.

[samus]

Everyone needs to start somewhere.  And here I am.

My name is Ashley, a girl.  I am 20 years old and I live in Scotland. 
Ever since my big brother (6 years older) had a Nintendo console I have loved games, till this very day and beyond.  I always got the hand me downs from my brother.

And one of those hand me downs was a computer.  I hated it!  I totally loathed it.  Never could imagine that "it" could produce better games than a games console.  However my courosity took over and I found Neopets!  NEOPETS?!   It was my first taste of HTML.  I loved it. 

However, I was never of a logic mind.  I'm an artist.
Shameless plug, I know.
So computers were just.. a "thing" at the side.  Art, and art college was my real goal.

But still, watching my brother (the logic one) work the computer like a wizard I was always jealous.  I wanted to make something so amazing with the computer.. I just didn't know what.

Through the academy (high school) years I continued to draw and paint and colour.  I constantly doubt my artistic abilities, and even dropped out of a Higher Art course for the fact I just didn't think I was good enough.  By that time I had taken a grip of the internet and a graphics tablet.  I wasn't a social girl either.  Just sat at home playing video games or on the internet *laughs*

When I finially did another Higher Art course, my logic again failed me.  I am horrible at discribing what I have in my head onto paper to make it sound like a story at a passing grade.  Even though my teachers told me how good I was at art, I just barely passed because of my writing skills.  That was August 2005.  I was depressed at my skills and swore I would never draw again.... 

No chance I was going into Art College.  However my parents convinced me to try a portfolio preperation class in a college.  And there I noticed... Web Development.  O:  That old flame sparked inside me again!  I was determined to be a web designer.  Logic AND Art skills.  I wanted to be an all rounder of a high quality!

Even though I didn't have the grades to get into the course (I needed any sort of computer skills at high school, which I didn't take) but I convinced them that with the years of watching my brother that THIS is what I wanted.  They accepted me.

2 years on, I'm top of my class and heading for a degree in Internet Technologies, and hopefully an honors, and after that?  Who knows?!

I know I'm not an ace at logic, but I will learn, learn, and learn some more.  That is why I'm here!  ^_^

Sheesh, I didn't mean to write a novel.

Anyway, I'm Ashley and I love Coca Cola.

[eric1235711]

Hello

My name is Eric, I'm Brazilian, japanese blood XP, 22 yrs old, finished IT highschool last year, but I'm good only with algorithms and db modeling.

I started learning VB3 about ten years ago.
I played with actionscript with 16.
and started coding in php with 19.

I always liked coding, but always for fun, it's always was such a toy for me.

Now I'm sad because I'm conding boring things, only to make money...

I'm training Aikido, I started in the beginning of this year. I'm loving it.

I play a little bit of piano/keyboard. My prefered artist is Björk.

I'm not married and also not dating.

I almos don't watch tv but I love the SwatKats, only the SwatKats.

nice to meet u.

[ober]

It's been a while since that first post and a lot of things have changed, so I thought I'd provide a few more details on myself as well as a few updates.

My name is Ben and I'm now 27.  I'm a hair under 6'3" and a hair over 200 lbs.  Some might think that's hefty... but I'm a pretty big guy and I'm pretty fit, but who couldn't lose 5-10 lbs?

Anywho... my daughter is now almost 6 months old and she takes up a lot of my time.  My 9-5 job is working as a Systems Analyst which is basically just a fancy term for a glorified Project Manager.  I'm in the healthcare industry and my company provides 2 main products, one of which will be shut down in 2009.  I'm the system owner (read "I approve everything about the product") of our main product and I pretty much control the requirements and everything about the product.  I'm the bridge between our development team and our services team.  It's an interesting job, but a far cry from the programming job I had previously.

I didn't really get into computers until after high school.  I used the family Pentium I 75Mhz computer to play video games and screw around in DOS messing with memory to maximize my games.  I then went to Kettering University in Michigan to get my BS in Computer Engineering.  We programming in C, ASM, Pascal, Java, etc.  I took database and OS classes in addition to the programming classes and I pretty much got my brain soaked in electrical engineering type stuff.  That and physics.  I hate physics.

While in college, I had an internship where I wrote some basic logging software and maintained some other software for an electric company dispatch center.  I also wrote my Bachelor's thesis with that company which involved some handheld PC software to do field inspections of electric substations.  I also started some web development while there and produced my first real website for a company that the electric company owned.

I left there after college and went to work for another company in a diesel engine lab.  That's when I ran into PHP.  I developed a multi-level intranet site for that company using PHP and MSSQL (not MySQL).  That was probably some of my best work to date and used a ton of different technologies to do graphing and data analysis and reporting.  If I had stayed there, I probably would have taken over the international data reporting routines for the entire company.  (It was a worldwide company).

Now on top of my 9-5 job, I maintain my side business that I've had going since '98 where I do web design, build computers and help people with networks or whatever they need.  Needless to say, it's keeping me busy.

So I think that's enough for now.  Glad to see this thread is continuing on.  I'd encourage the rest of you to update it regularly.