Well thanks for asking

5 minute read

I got into programming quite by chance at the start of 2021 with no prior experience. Well, almost no prior experience, years earlier I had played around with a couple of online website builders for a guitar tuition business I was running, and years before that spent a couple of hours reading up on html (I have no idea why!). In all honesty I wasn’t particularly interested in ‘coding’. Understandable really- think about it, how can you be interested in something you don’t know anything about?

Well with covid and a change of life circumstance from moving to a new country (England to Finland), I found myself with some time on my hands. I’m a pretty proactive guy and as I see it this is one of the biggest advantages I had, and of course it’s a skill you can cultivate. (See my article on Make the time). In the years prior I had written two full length novels and several short-ish stories and hundreds of poems, all trying to fuse my interest in ‘meditation’ (We don’t have the space to get into it now, but I did an article on it here) and the human condition more broadly. Surprisingly I didn’t become the next J.K Rowling but you can check out my first published short here. Its about a baby whose tantrums bring about climate disasters (among other things) and how the world accommodates the tyke. I say this not as a plug, but because its kind of relevant. I’m not exaggerating about being proactive, stuff takes time and for me it took years to get my life into a condition where I could make use of the time I had on a daily basis to get into productive habits. Anyone can pull and all-nighter or go all out for a few weeks and then burn out. Coding is an ultramarathon, and one where I can’t even see the finish line.

So, start of 2021 and coding, right? Well yes, but again only because I had put my priorities in order. I love music and have been playing for over fifteen years. I spent the last six months of 2020 getting deep into my music, writing, recording, mixing. That was my priority. Again not a plug (well alright kinda, check it out here) but again its not just bragging about all the stuff I do, its talking about priorities. Life is short you should do what you want to do. If that’s coding then you are in the right place I promise (you are on an about page remember), but if maybe there is something else you would rather do, do it, do you. If what I’m saying is resonating with you check out this article on is coding right for you?

Alright writing, music, moving abroad, did I mention the half marathon I’m training for and the love of icy lake dipping I’ve developed? How did coding fit into an already full life? Well my wife mentioned it a few times, (quite a few times actually!). She liked the idea of portable work, reasonable pay, learning a new skill that seems to be becoming more relevant by the day. For her this is, she signed up to a free course offered by the local university. Then I don’t really know what happened, maybe that was enough to make me want to take a look, maybe it was being between jobs on struggling to find work as a brewer (my previous occupation) or any other work for that matter. Whatever the reason, I was waiting to be enrolled in a full-time language course and decided to follow my wife’s advice and look into coding.

What then? Well I pretty quickly stumbled over FreeCodeCamp and CS50x (see the links sections). FreeCodeCamp is pretty gamified (at least to me who gets a thrill out of paying attention to my breath), its bite-sized and highly-rated. That’s easy enough to get into, 20 minutes or so a day adds up pretty quickly. In about six-weeks I had worked my way through the responsive website design certification and built my first (very basic) html sites and earnt some certification. Very accessible, and a great place to start. Thanks FCC.

But that’s not really enough, it doesn’t feel like a full-blown learning experience and I was willing to give some more, that’s where CS50 came in. My interest was stirred in the first lecture and I was having code flow moments (is that even a thing?) by the third weeks problem sets. I’m just over the halfway mark at the time of writing, it’s tough, its time demanding, but its brilliant. There is a lot of praise for CS50 on the internet, and I guess this is a little bit more. CS50 changed the game for me and really sparked the fire that this whole blog is just one part of.

That’s it, that’s how I got started. I was ready and willing to put in the effort, I was sincerely enjoying what I was doing and in it for the experience of learning, rather than trying to chase some dream of a nice salary (I mean who knows, but that alone is not enough to keep the motivation up).

So that’s plenty about me, oh alright, a little more! I like tortillas, don’t really have a favourite colour, and my favourite album is The Empryean by John Frusciante.

Now we are here, together. Hopefully you have a sense of where I’m coming from and a bit more of an idea what to expect from this blog:

I’ll keep you posted on my progression on CS50, FCC, and any other things I get into.

Creating this blog has been an experience in itself and I’ve learnt some valuable lessons from it.

I’m also documenting the coding principles a I think are worth mentioning, we have technical articles on the basic loops, CSS first steps, building a nest & many more.

The links section will be well worth a look.

As well as the reading list and brief book reviews.

General stuff relevant to coding like keeping your motivation up and developing good habits.

And if you fancy something a little different, I might sometimes post about stuff that has nothing to do with coding here.

Its going to be a great place to start if you’re a new to coding and its going to become a useful resource for anyone who is coding. If I think it’s valuable, I’ll post it here.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the site.

Let me know about your own journey to get into coding in the comments below.