It started with monochromatic King’s Quest I and Lode Runner.
I grew up around clone 286/386’s and remember setting extended memory to play Wing Commander 1. I’d occasionally jump on a bulletin board (aka BBS) using Procomm via a 1200 or 2400 baud modem in Blairsville,GA. A fear years passed and I didn’t touch computers because I wanted to go on dates and play my guitar. Thus started my passion for music.
In the 90’s I begin to tinker some more thanks to my friend Tim’s dual-boot NT/95 on a Pentium Pro Gateway2000. I recall fondly playing Mechwarrior2 and getting on that old interwebby. This was on my off nights working at Best Buy selling PC’s and playing in a band in Athens, GA.
Hardware led to networking. Networking led to Sysadmin. Sysadmin led to Linux/Unix and scripting ensued. I sought to squash all things repetitive and held the web close to my heart.
After a few years of Java, JSP and Struts, I began to crave a better way. One without so many stinking options, configuration possibilities and put simply: let me just begin writing code for my business problem related to a web app. All this while I played in 1000 Fires.
At this time, I began writing scores for independent films and did a project called the “Problem of Happiness.
Alas I parted ways from 1000fires after hearing the Medications play. A fellow bar patron at P’cheen in Atlanta circa fall 2006 said check out Ruby on Rails. I had heard some mutterings on newsgroups, but was like: “sheesh, great another language, I just got used to Python’s indentations last year!” I relented and watched DHH’s video, but was impressed somewhat. Add to that, Why’s (poignant) guide to ruby was partly a deal-maker for me. I’d never seen such an odd and artistic diatribe about a language before and that gained my respect as I consider myself odd. Some folks are put off by this actually, but I presume they love re-writing databases from scratch.
A fear years later…
I don’t regret leaving behind Java or PHP for web development. I can be found at a bar or cafe from time to time showing someone scaffolding, ActiveRecord and the built in logical structure of a Rails app that allows me to come onsite to a project and start writing code on day 1. Moreover, I don’t think I can ever go back to commercial or “enterprise” software to pay my bills. Nor can I ever see something as wonderful in the near future, compiled or otherwise replacing the deceptively simple, Ruby.
