Thirty years of fun, learning, and new technologies

30 years ago, I started designing and making software as a hobby that eventually turned into my career. I hesitate to make this post due to the potential for ageism, but it's important to understand how far we've come. Ultimately, I want to celebrate this milestone.

I experienced the time before CSS. I’ve watched the evolution of JavaScript and HTML. I’ve seen core languages created and mature. PHP, Java, Ruby, Go, R, and more. Databases, isomorphics, vectors, and warehouses. I’ve lived through multiple browser wars. IDEs weren’t a thing. Developer tools didn’t exist. There were no design systems. Figma and Lottie didn't exist. Starter kits weren’t available; everything was bespoke. I saw plugins like Flash and Java come and go along with paradigms like Gopher and FTP. There was a period of time when ActiveDesktop was a thing. Eventually, Electron brought full web applications to the desktop. JavaScript leaped from browsers to CLIs. New device categories were created, like mobile phones, tablets, mobile apps, mixed reality, IOT, and wearables. Location-based computing started to evolve. I witnessed the birth of Linux, virtual machines, containers, cloud computing, and now edge computing. I’ve seen content management systems, automation platforms, monitoring, tag managers, telemetry, and analytics take shape. Content became headless, and systems became API driven. I remember the creation of revision control systems like Git, along with commit artifacts, CI/CD pipelines, webhooks, preview environments, merge requests, and code reviews. Real-time collaboration became an option using WebSockets, WebRTC, and event subscriptions.

For a brief period, I experienced the world without GUIs. There were no online communities and no YouTube to learn from. Most schools couldn’t teach this stuff, and if they could, the curriculum was already outdated. Library books and card catalogs were how we taught ourselves. Always-on, high-bandwidth internet connections were incredibly rare and basically unheard of. Wireless computing was basically non-existent. Now those options are everywhere.

If you're still reading this, thank you. If you're an elder software creator, congratulate yourself. You've been through a lot. You've seen things. You've survived. Keep it up, but do it because you love it. Find the spark that keeps you going and nurture the flame.

If you see yourself or someone else in this post, please share it.

It's been a wild 30 years.