An Artist in Disguise

An intro — to me and a new year!

As we step into a new year (cheers to 2023!), it's often a time to not only reflect on the last 365 days, but also to look forward to new beginnings. As such, it seems like the ideal time to launch this blog as a way to reflect not only on the past year, but the past 8 years as a web developer — to share some learnings, some struggles and some optimism heading forward. But first, a little about me...

From marketing to development

If you clicked a bit through my website, you may have discovered that I'm more than just a developer. What I do during the workday does not define me. In fact, quite the opposite. I would say that the time I spend away from my computer, actually plays a greater role in my professional career than the other way around. It is my hobbies, my experiences, my life lessons that make me a better developer, a more effective contributor and a creative problem solver. 

But I wasn't always a developer.

Like many people in web development, I started my career elsewhere. With an eye for design, I was always drawn to the creative side of business. Combining my writing skills and graphic design capabilities, I spent several years working in marketing before taking the dive into web development. The obvious path for me was to focus on front-end development, where I could fine-tune the aesthetic of a website.

I wanted to be to the web what Leondardo DaVinci was to the art world. I wanted to make websites into a masterpiece.

And I did to a certain extent. I added animations to bring static elements of a site to life. I coded the styles that turned dull words on a page into colorful, tasteful designs with carefully selected fonts and color schemes. I was, in a sense, painting the web.

But I also learned that the mechanics behind the site were just as important.

As I became more immersed in the code, I eventually had the opportunity to work in the back-end writing models and scripts for the python-based framework Django.

An Imposter...or so I thought

Even as I expanded my knowledge from front-end to back-end, I still felt inadequate. I had a Journalism degree, not a Computer Science degree. I wasn't coding Geocities websites as a teenager and didn't really have any interest in the technologies used to make a website run when I was younger.

Did I really have any business calling myself a web developer? Am I just "faking it until I make it?"

Perhaps you've had those same "imposter" feelings at some point in your life? That pit in your stomach that you aren't worthy of a particular label?

I have. More times than I'd like to admit.

Me, a runner? Hardly. I can "jog" but I'm certainly not a runner, I'd tell myself. A writer? No way. I can string sentences together, but the words never flow easily. And a developer? More like a professional Googler.

Imposter Syndrome hit hard.

Unfortunately I'm not sure there is any way to prevent that feeling. Nor can I say it completely goes away. But the longer I work at something, the more confident I become. After nearly 8 years of development experience, there are days I still wake up questioning whether I really know what I'm doing. But there are other days I look back on how far I've come...from writing basic html and css to being able to code APIs and create SPAs with Vue and graphQL.

Development is a marathon not a sprint.

It's an emotional rollercoaster. You can never be fully prepared for the bumps in the road and you'll most certinaly encounter both highs and lows over the years. The key, however, is to accept the struggles and celebrate the accomplishments. 

Never Stop Learning. Never Stop Creating.

If there's one thing I've learned from web development, it's that no developer can know everything. But that shouldn't stop any of us from learning about the technologies we're curious about.

The world of tech is so vast that it's impossible to know every language, every framework, every library available. Instead, I've learned to focus on the things that pique my interest. I read about them, play around with them, and test them out on a new project.

This portfolio site, for example, was my playground for incorporating different technologies.

While quite simple, this site was built using Django on the back-end, Vue on front-end and graphQL to connect the two. I also played around with Docker locally as I was building the foundation for the site. And, while I wouldn't normally using these technologies for such a simple site, I saw an opportunity to refresh my skills in Django and dive a bit deeper into graphQL.

A bit of a self portrait…

I hope you've gotten a slightly better picture of who I am and how I approach web development. I hope to continue to share some thoughts on web development throughout the year ahead and maybe how travel adventures, baking successes (and fails) or physical activities play into my role as a developer.

It's a new year and just like you, I'm starting with a blank canvas. 

We really are all just artists in disguise...some of us just use the web to paint a picture for the rest of the world.