I wanted to write my own games. Which at age of 7 I actually managed to sell to other kids for decent snack money.

Wow this is funny, my first steps in programming were out of pure necessity, one of my best childhood friends had a very high level of blindness, he was very fond of soccer and loved to read sports news every day. Unfortunately his vision got much worse in a few months and he couldn't read as much news as he liked, so I researched about tools that could improve his user experience.

Here I discovered the exciting opensource ecosystem, but on the other hand I realized that most websites were not accessible for people with special needs, something that still happens today. I was obsessed for weeks to get my friend could continue to enjoy reading that he liked so much, I spent the day saving lines of code to later juggle until he could hear the news directly, it was something simple but it made me feel like a little wizard of the web.

Months later I started to offer web accessibility services to some local companies, I charged ridiculous prices but I made sure I kept learning, my goal was simply to turn the webs into accessible spaces for everyone. So yep, I don't consider myself an expert, I just fell in love with python years ago, although my creative nature makes me feel happier and more comfortable in frontend and UI dev

Its a long story but it started with me getting a programming in basic book from the library when I was kid. I didn't really have access to new computers so I used a Tandy TRS-80 until the screen died. I didn't touch a computer for many years after that. Then in my twenties after doing many different jobs I hated I decided to pick a career path. Took some programming and HTML classes at community college and I was hooked. It was the early 2000s and I thought this Internet thing was going places. Every other work I did bored me out of my mind. I needed to be challenged and have new things to learn. I didn't realize it at the time but learning new things and self improvement are things that give me energy. Things that drive me.

I often tell people that ask about being a dev that they can do it. But I can't tell them if they will love it. Its not rocket science but it also isn't easy. It can be very frustrating and you better be determined to learn. That drive to understand why and figure stuff out needs to be strong. It will help you get through the tough spots everyone hits.

I like to build things. I like to solve problems. I found that computer programming made sense to me, and it was fun, so I stuck with it.

Automate work made for slaves. My first job was a slave job. I did my work at first, then got bored and progressively automated everything with bash and Python. In the end I just had to press keystrokes to do stuff. I became bored again and then applied for programming jobs. And then got back to university to get a CS degree. Software engineering became boring again until the moment I discovered bitcoin... Now I have sleep problems.

25 years ago it was really cool to make a personal website on AOL. One thing led to another.

The excitement of getting something to work how you want it to work.

Also being the “genius” that other people are amazed by, as a kid.

once you began achieving these four things, were there any desires that you realized you either no longer wanted or didn’t need to be a dev to realize?

for example, do you still get the same enjoyment out of building your own tools that you thought you would when you began your journey as a dev?

To prove to everyone back home that I’m smart

Now I center divs

I thought I’d learn how to program in case it caught on.

My curious creativity to build things in an almost borderless landscape

It was three things:

Online game DarkAgesWorld

lol I had a degree in computer programming but turned into a Scrum Master now. I love leading implementation teams. I’m stronger in lean processes and issue improvements than in my technical skills. Know your strengths!

An episode of lupin when i was 10 ¯\(ツ)/¯. I wish i had a better villain origin story

Necessity.

Coding makes me happy. You can make anything, control your universe, as long as you have a laptop and WiFi!

Started playing those old games with a friend that had a gaming console when I was very young, then in my 4th grade as a homework I had to write what I wanted to do as an adult. My mom suggest programmer since I liked the games, that set my path.

to build my own stuff

I love the thrill of learning something new!

If you can't control computer algorithms, they will control you. Over time this gets more and more important. Got to level up or be leveled.

Always found fascinating to make computers do whatever I wanted them to do.

I still do, but now things are a bit different. The whole industry has changed a bit.