How we got into web development - HTTP 203

Key Takeaways

hey soma hey Jake do you like video yeah say no no well then did you know that we do a podcast which is like this but without the video and with more sound it has bonus material and you can put it in your ears look at the description for the link so so so so I thought I would bring something up but I had a couple of people ask me at the conference I've been recently because they asked me like what's what's your background like how did you end up in in doing what you do now I get emails like this as well yeah I'm saying like Oh sort of how did you get where you are and I answer it's usually done look yes and that's that's kind of that is always how I replied and I think this is a tweet that I've mentioned on over the video series on the podcast before we do a podcast did you know our cast we do a podcast they'll be a link we do yeah and my answer is always well it's like telling people like the numbers I used to win the lottery yeah and it's I don't I'm not convinced this might not be helpful to you at all yes so I guess what we're going to talk about our backgrounds yeah I have no shame well yeah and if you thought previous episode so if H to be true and free we're entirely self indulgent nothing yet this is this is the big one right I was born long episode no I I think from looking at our team I'm more on the traditional side of how ahead of you I started computer sciences did my bachelor's start a master's wait wait so you're you did computer science before your bachelor's oh yeah I had interests I did the odd language he in there that was a high school yes very formally oh Justin you know just like oh okay kids it was nothing was all not useful no the computer science class or computer classes that we had were not useful to me and I already but you did have computer classes we did right but that was more like like I'm having to really think for this information that's all I owe sorry okay what do you I'll tell you just talk what you want to talk about how old sit back and you let me know when I'm allowed to come in and ask you some questions well I thought I I'm more visual because I did in fact actually study Computer Sciences which I know of people on our team actually did not or I know a couple of people even also if you did not you are one example because you did not said that you studied multimedia oh that's very what could be better than media but Oh multimedia Jews that's what I'm going for yeah and you still ended up here regrettably that is I think that goes back to what we're saying about dumb luck that is they knew so many people like I work here at Google that sort of prides itself with like hiring the best people I'm like I'm not and I'm sitting alongside people who went to prestigious universities like neo Oxford Cambridge types and that does make me feel like it gets the or would you call it the impostor syndrome it gets that going but then on the other side I'm like ha you had to do a hard university course and I cheated got here somehow but okay you did that's pretty much what I think is worth pointing out that especially web developments or anything a lot of software engineering is so Internet centric that you can't find anything you want on the Internet and teach yourself if you want yeah yeah yeah like the formal degrees are good I'm don't want to say that studying computer science wasn't useful like I learned things definitely thinks that I'm necessarily using nowadays in the web job that I have are you sure okay there's some things I am using so when we I think we've talked about before that I like yeah you come from that you're much better at the low-level stuff than I am and I always thought that I put that down to like you did a lower level of course like you did a course like what compilers were involved in and I did a course that had VRML and Adobe director or like those macro media at the time I guess right and flash like my horse was predominantly flash I mean yeah I did have a course on compilers but I think I know more low level stuff because that what my first job was about what so wait why did you pick to do a computer science degree then was your because I didn't know any better like it seems like the obvious choice I enjoyed math and people when I said I enjoyed computer I want to do let me shine sticky people like do you know it's love math right and I'm like well I can't enjoy math so I'm okay with that okay so and then I just studied computer sciences and not I didn't enjoy everything in there like some courses I did not enjoy they were just really outdated or not relevant to my interests so it's interesting in my multimedia course it was that the same story was true I would say was predominantly flash but we did have some webcourses the were actually causes that I I was always interested in the the computing side that got you to something visual really quickly right so I like on my amiga deluxe paint was my thing I loved it like making animations I thought I was going to be a designer because that's what I really loved interesting there's a small problem with that rubbish at it seriously bad have you seen our proximal is beautiful don't mess with the proximate row yes you see you see what happens went wrong so yes it was when I kind of went on to the PC and the web like the web was really I was like I'm in such tourist I don't exactly I can have right do a thing see a thing it's great I want to make that and then I found this button called view source and but that was a like when I worked with executables or used executables in the past I was like it felt it was I couldn't figure out how to get there and that's what drove me because when I asked whenever somebody said he is a programmer or whatever I'm like how do I make exe files right that was drove me because I wanted to understand because what I did I opened the HC files in notepad and change the strings that I saw and sometimes it would still run and sometimes it wouldn't the and only later I figured out it only kept working if the string was the exact same like this before yes yes so we did a so this is the thing I guess the difference between use you looked at the XE fault and went I'm gonna do that as I went I got no this this is impossible I could do it now but at the time is like no and then the web just gave me the easy answer to how this was done and that was yeah it took two prizing you long because people will like the people I asked we're trying to give I guess I was fairly young I must have been like 10 or something when I was trying to do this and when I had like how how do I make a XE and they were trying to give me oh no don't do that here's programming use Excel and I'm like that's not program I mean I know what they were getting at right like it's reactive programming and you do formulas and like but I won't exist yes I always fought the foot for me that the it was the exe file and screensaver which I kind of pretty much the same thing yeah I later learned that was like though this is this magic behind those files yes on the file editing thing the closest I got to that was a grand theft auto one that we found the wav files for the cut sequences which will also be like it would always be this like like amazing artwork of like some serious gangster and me and my friends would just record like hello Reginald here I've been shooting some people up but I'm done now and I'm going to go start a shop I also went in and found some Doddy ini files where you can just go in and then they're pretty human readable and there's stuff like do you book mode and I was like yes please so this I think we were just coming to it's like it's a hacking around was really I think it seems to be what what is it's always a a weird kind of passion or interest that drives you to just dig deeper because otherwise I wouldn't have cancelled all my friends and stayed at home keep working on something stupid I really mean 'uncle order has gone completely from this episode so I'm going to jump back to education and that like the we we learned how to want one module that we had was making website without using Dreamweaver or something like that yeah which was actually useful because I've never tried that before and we also did module on CSS Zen garden do you know what that is I I've heard of it I don't think it really is but roughly know what it's about it was kind of dawn of CSS becoming the right way of doing things and it was an HTML page and you were only allowed to change the CSS and it was essentially an art gallery of different things people could create by only changing the CSS oh it's just way Dave Shea who I saw and I thought was it was actually quite a modern thing for us and do that at university but I met Dave Shea later on and I was like we did a module on you at university it was I thought it was a weird moment but I would say it's like that yeah a lot of the course was depending on depending on the teacher a lot of it was out of date I remember a question on my exam paper which was about CSS it said like what does this CSS do and it had a dot active like color red that should be a colon short there should be a colon and so the person who marked that must have hated me because I wrote two answers I was like what are these answers is the answer you think because I was because I just foreign link tag with the active class on it it or yeah you meant to say oh you maybe you meant to say this and the teacher was just like is it illegal to punch pupils because you know I had done a bit web stuff on the side so I felt really smug and probably you can outsmart them yeah that's winning but for me the most important part of my course was the urine industry it was a four year course and in the middle work experience and that I didn't have that that's why you're rubbish mate well I got I did that myself because and in my second year I think I tried to do my own company with a couple of other students do that I did and that's how I got into the whole low-level stuff where did microprocessor programming and hardware engineering in all these things from the very basic electrical engineering law that had mostly taught from my mom who was an electrical engineer oh I didn't have that my dad played guitar did he teach me guitar dad teach me guitar no you're left-handed not stringing this up again actually he was very supportive I just I wasn't cool enough didn't have the dexterity so yeah that's that's why I picked that up and my company failed miserably like it was absolutely not a success after two years of working full time and not paying myself anything so I do recommend yeah what did you learn from it he said that's what I was like I would never do it again but it also would not skip it right because it I I got all my contacts during that I learned so much about what I want to do and what I'm good at and what I'm not good at I'm not good at being a CEO because I spent all my time doing illegal and taxes and like no that's not what I'm good at did you this is yeah I know I'm taking this episode in random directions again did you have to it's fair to say like we were talking about we've got a lot look there's also a lot of people who have to have had to have to overcome a lot of stuff yeah to they sort of to make it or to just like so you know survive in the industry did you get anything close to that was there anything that you had today wasn't come I I had massive lots of privileges along the path that made it very easy to end up where I am considering that so my my dad is a doctor was one of the first doctors to adopt a computer system for his patients head of having a paper file system and for some reason he allowed so he had a computer at home which was not the norm in the mid 90s necessarily I would say like a proper windows 3.11 good times yeah and I I mean I wouldn't do anything weird to coding on there I would just sit there and not be afraid to commit and just open my paint and draw because that's what I do yeah yeah yeah and but yeah he allowed me to use a computer and I bricked it more than once usually he still allowed me to use it despite this being his you know work computer with his patient's data on there and so that's obviously a massive head start to many other people who did not have a computer at home at age 6 or 7 I did so my my family weren't particularly well-off we were I wouldn't I don't know if it's a with poor but we weren't well-off either but I definitely when my sister arrived that my dad went well what we're gonna do about this of a child gave a computer and that as I got a ZX spectrum 81 when I was a Sinclair spectrum and that was kind of like and when I saw like because obviously when my dad was thinking to things like we'll get the boy a computer was also thinking will get the boy a computer and so and he did a bit of programming on that and I found that almost more interesting than the games that came with it and that was I mean but because I was I tended to be on the generation of machine behind the kind of people that were richer I I sort of felt like I I was trying to get the most out of the system right and that led to a lot of like hacking it perfmatters yeah right from the start and yeah and like train really interested in demo scene I was never on it but like I was really fascinated by it like yeah people who are really driving computers so would you say that that's what made you go into programming it just saw your dad do a little bit of coding there yeah because I mean it was my cousin oh interested I didn't like I was okay with him it was good with computers I knew their way around them was comfortable them but I didn't do programming and I hadn't any interest I didn't know what it was but then I saw him write a batch script like Windows batch scripts mm-hmm that were just output stars and two spaces as far fast as possible and so it would look like snow falling in the terminal because what sulfide leur he looked like what's going down oh and I took that script and I turned the stars into a backslash and now it was rain and I was like I'm a hacker I was the star of my school because I could like write on the screen mr. Butler has farted one time as farted two times reset and make that goddamn screen everyone thought I was the funniest kid in the classroom yeah i coded the machine that you're not different today no I still do that trick is the name at the start changes but there was one one teacher had at school he was a science teacher who I I guess didn't like children he definitely didn't like being in the north because I was doing like computer stuff and I think I was probably not that was probably being annoying okay so fantasize for the right word let's say annoying severely annoying and he sort of took me aside at one point and so he kind of went you think you're pretty smart you think you're pretty smart the computers and stuff but compared to kids in the South you're nothing yeah yeah yeah all right and so it and that is probably the only time in my career that I kind of really like felt that and so when people talk about I guess especially like women in the industry minorities who are getting that day every day yeah that at that moment that happened to me is the one thing that I can hang on to and think God how that made me feel I would not I would not make it did not make it if that was constant like so it's yeah it's horrible that that happens and that's the only thing I've got that I couldn't get some empathy I could just expand multiply that by millions yeah pretty much isn't it so so what is the bottom line I just I mean I said like there's so many people that I work with we work with that come from completely different fields and we'll put us in a corner and the things that they can do yeah that I hope more companies adopt the whole you don't need a degree to get hired as a web engineer or something along those lines because they're missing out on some very very good talent out there yes yes the other way around nobody should feel discouraged from getting started web development just because they come from an orchestra background or something like it actually might have some real nice energy said you're not aware of yet anyone could be a web developer as long as you're extremely lucky they're in the right place in the right time what yeah if that's our morale that's bleak but I guess I don't don't be discouraged but don't also feel you have to copy someone else's footsteps because the when someone tells you here's how I made it they are almost certainly completely wrong they made it through some other things some look and if you're trying you know if they were watching this are trying to make it in your story then hope you have the same look keep going keep going h to be to a free swag the birthing of salt so you guys get like get a full keyboard with different pitches so so so