After spending some time being part of the cruel work force of telling people to get bent in customer service (because lets face it, customer service is about making customers feel good, not giving away the company), I decided to get involved in the programming world. This started out with a small idea to get some experience in a quick Visual Basic application. Even though it did ok, it was what it was, a small application that served no real purpose or solved any problems.
But I was determined to do this. Even though in high school, it was still before the internet boom and computer in every home, I was familiar with computers and writing applications. But this was just the BASIC application and making sure all of my GOTO were ok. I pretty much forgot about this avenue until I got married and was tired of doing the same boring thing. I enrolled in classes at Chandler-Gilbert Community College, and started down a long path to the goal. I started off to get my classes so I could become an MCSD (pre .NET). I also took more Java classes and web classes (HTML, PHP, and SEO) to help me round it off. During this time, I was working in the IT department for an online retailer in Tempe. As I was learning, I was writing applications to help the IT Support team out.
Then the boom happened. The Twin Towers came down, and it started a trickle down effect that affected everything. The dotCom bust was in full swing, as was this new economy problem. After suffering some setbacks with my wife’s jobs and new opportunities now drying up, I had to find a way to finish my two year degree (AAS in Application Programming). Soon, I finished up the AAS and .NET 1.x was out. More classes to learn for C#, VB, and ASP in the .NET platform. However, stand alone applications were not enough.
I started to learn more intense PHP and ColdFusion. I moved from the IT Department to the IS Department taking over an entire website that was written in PHP. I helped out with the intranet for the company (ColdFusion based) and started to take on side jobs for local businesses. Tired of recompiling Java all the time, I started to delve deeper in the PHP open source world. Writing applications and extensions for projects, I started to take more confidence in my skills and has multiple clients on the side.
I left the company to take on a project management role for development. After doing that for 16months, I became the Web Applications Architect for this non-profit organization. Due to staffing restrictions, some projects were completed by using different open source projects and extending them. Other projects were built from the ground up. Then I had an opportunity for growth, and started with a California production company to help develop applications with them.
Currently my life is knee deep in PHP. However, with the new movement into the mobile world, another realm I am starting in on is Apple development, specifically for the iPhone and the iPod. What will the future hold for me? I am not sure. But from 1997 until now it has been a wild ride. It can only get better.
