Late 90's, family bought a computer, spend a lot of time on it, mostly playing video game, making video game/3d stuff & web site. Since running website required linux, switched to linux around ~2000, begining the hosting path, compiled a lot of kernels (drivers stuff were no jokes back then), coding in C, java, php, bash etc.
> Were any books, blogs, forums, or people particularly helpful for your growth? What is it about coding that got you hooked?
A lot of books & forums, lugs, irc communities. But not one thing in particular.
> What is your experience with university? Did you get a degree, was it worth it, do you think it helped you find work, what did you love/hate about uni?
Got a master degree in CS. The studies were very useful, shaped very well the way i think and i keep in touch, work with a lot of people i met there. The paper in itself is useless. The job market was already starved for dev, so if you knew how to boot a computer and were motivated to learn, you would get a job offer signed one year before graduation.
> How did you get your first paid work (family & friends, internship, freelance, full-time)?
summer job coding in PHP/running linux boxes for a guy i met on IRC.
> What do you do now and what do you love/hate about your job?
Senior dev in startups. i find it really amazing the improvement of capabilities and the cost of small MCU; i started working in embedded stuff with 100mhz/64Mo of memory for $200 and now you can buy 10x that for $4, it's crazy. i love the improvement of the ecosystem, better langage, better tooling, more ressources, the cloud etc. The javascript part could be a lot better, these people seems to reinvent the wheel every two years.. Linux on desktop/gnome is crap. And i hate that LTE modem or broadcom wifi/ble firmwares still aren't reliable in 2021; it's a shame that it needs 10 different watchdogs to have a device running 1 years without human intervention.
Late 90's, family bought a computer, spend a lot of time on it, mostly playing video game, making video game/3d stuff & web site. Since running website required linux, switched to linux around ~2000, begining the hosting path, compiled a lot of kernels (drivers stuff were no jokes back then), coding in C, java, php, bash etc.
> Were any books, blogs, forums, or people particularly helpful for your growth? What is it about coding that got you hooked?
A lot of books & forums, lugs, irc communities. But not one thing in particular.
> What is your experience with university? Did you get a degree, was it worth it, do you think it helped you find work, what did you love/hate about uni?
Got a master degree in CS. The studies were very useful, shaped very well the way i think and i keep in touch, work with a lot of people i met there. The paper in itself is useless. The job market was already starved for dev, so if you knew how to boot a computer and were motivated to learn, you would get a job offer signed one year before graduation.
> How did you get your first paid work (family & friends, internship, freelance, full-time)?
summer job coding in PHP/running linux boxes for a guy i met on IRC.
> What do you do now and what do you love/hate about your job?
Senior dev in startups. i find it really amazing the improvement of capabilities and the cost of small MCU; i started working in embedded stuff with 100mhz/64Mo of memory for $200 and now you can buy 10x that for $4, it's crazy. i love the improvement of the ecosystem, better langage, better tooling, more ressources, the cloud etc. The javascript part could be a lot better, these people seems to reinvent the wheel every two years.. Linux on desktop/gnome is crap. And i hate that LTE modem or broadcom wifi/ble firmwares still aren't reliable in 2021; it's a shame that it needs 10 different watchdogs to have a device running 1 years without human intervention.