My first coding experience

The first code I ever wrote... thats a tough one as it's hard to say what consists of coding, but I would say it was somewhere around 2009 when I started playing with android. I've alway been interested in technology, from taking apart my toys to fins out how they work, to learning how to solder small lights to a power source it has always been something that gave me great happiness.

Android

The HTC Dream, the Google G1, whatever name you want to give my first smart phone I was hooked to it. Within a few days of owning it I learned it could be rooted, and although I didn't really know what that meant I knew i wanted to do it! So I dug through forums and random websites until I was able to do it succesfully. I felt like some sort of big shot, but in reality I just followed other peoples guides and didn't really know what I did or why it worked! After I realized that I decided to figure that out. I dropped Windows and picked up Linux, I found IRC's with tons of awesome people who helped me and embraced the open source community.

XDA developers

I slowly became active in internet forums myself, tried to find ways to give back by helping others just as others freely helped me. I was given the title of recogonized developer and have over 6000 posts Here's My Profile. Through hands on learning and help from others I slowly gained the skills to create some small apps and even ported some ROM's to devices. But it was though helping others that I learned the most. I made a bunch of guides on various topics like how to use the android debuuging brindge, fastboot, create update.zips. Which brings me to my first real coding, edify.

Edify

Is Edify a coding language? A markup langauge? I really don't know. But it was the first time I wrote scripts from scratch that allowed programs to run in a taylored way so I guess it kind of is. At first this scripts were very simply, they just ran what was installed with no user interaction. Then I meant someone who found a way to allow for user input and I tried to make this work for me as well, but it was too hard and he had to hold my hand through everything I made. Then another developer created an easier method to allow a gui within the update process and this is where I started to make dozens of scripts for various devices. But this was always just a fun hobby to me. I was in college, working full time, really enjoyed my social life and traveling so this never amounted to more than just a pasttime.

Lessons Learned

I picked up so many new skills from those early days in android, made some good friends and found the open source community. I learned I could code, I learned I could teach, and I learned I could be happy doing it. My mistake was not realizing this could also be a carrer and instead continued on into fields that did not hold my intrests. I hope this blog will help you find this passion in yourself and if you truly enjoy coding then I hope it will inspire you to learn. And as always...

Happy Coding!