How do you write an introduce yourself to a new community without bragging or being self-deprecating? Tough job, let's see how I do.
Early years, or "how I started coding"
I started coding in my early years on a Commodore 64. I had a poker game that I was getting really frustrated at since I kept losing. Instead of learning to play poker better, I dug into the BASIC source code to make it so I would always have a royal flush. Not very sporting, but probably better for my long-term career than getting really good at gambling at an early age. In high school, when my dad told me I wasting my life "playing computer games" while I was learning to program it lit a fire in me to prove him wrong. I'm pretty sure he'd agree he was wrong.
Career, or "you're actually going to pay me to do this?"
I've been a software developer professionally for two decades, bouncing from job to job much more frequently that I would like. I've gotten to the point where layoffs don't scare me. Take the severance and run. That being said, a little stability would be nice. I've worked for some really large companies you've probably heard of (Google, IBM, Intel) and some smaller companies you probably haven't. I've worked in many different programming languages, primarily PHP. Despite its warts, it is always the language I come back to, partly because I know it better than the other languages I've developed in professionally, like Go and Python, and partly because it's just so easy to get things done in.
Despite having stage fright, social exhaustion, and imposter syndrome, I have spoken at a bunch of PHP conferences (Lone Star PHP, Midwest PHP, Ski PHP, and ZendCon) as well as my local Meetup. I find giving back to the community that so freely gave educational material to kickstart my career very important, and am continually humbled that the community puts up with me.
Hobbies, or "stuff that keeps me from coding"
Outside of software development, I have two hobbies that suck up most of my time and disposable income. I play ice hockey on a few beer-league teams. I started when I was thirty years old and it's been one of the more rewarding pursuits in my life. The camaraderie of a team is something I've missed since high school, and it helps keep me in some semblance of shape so my other hobby doesn't destroy my body completely. I'm also really into craft beer, both drinking it and brewing it. I have zero interest in brewing professionally but do enjoy pouring my beer at tech conferences.
Steemit, or "why am I here?"
So what brings me to Steemit? I've been aware of cryptocurrency since sometime in 2009 when I went on a ski trip with some coworkers. Kousha was fascinated by this whitepaper from a person named Satoshi and spent most of the drive home to Mountain View from Tahoe talking about it. The road trip actually seemed a bit too short; I wanted to hear more. But life got in the way and I didn't think much more about it for years. Then at a conference, I ran into this guy named Luke that had the same fascination with cryptocurrency and more broadly in the blockchain. His interest was infectious, though again, I didn't make time to really get involved. I did manage to buy a little bit of Bitcoin and have been thinking of places to shoehorn the blockchain in. My professional work has not been a good fit for the technology, but I hope to eventually build something with it.
I used to have a blog, but the lack of interaction on it kept me from really working hard on it. It looks like the Steemit community is much more active. I'm not sure what kind of posts I'm more likely to write here. I used to be into creative writing (stories, poems, etc). Perhaps I'll bring some of that back. Perhaps I'll stick to the more technical topics I'm interested in these days.
Welcome to (one of the many )Steem platforms!
Just do what you love to do, there are many niches to be found and/or created here!
Rock, cat memes everywhere all the time!
Not really, though you get an occasional picture of Scriptlet, my evil cat:
Welcome to Steemit. I would say whatever you decide you want to write about, do it. As it is, a lot of us end up writing about all kinds of things when we first get our feet wet, which includes Steemit itself. So bring whatever you feel you want to bring.
I've had a Wordpress blog on and off for years, so knowing more PHP would actually be helpful, if that's what you decided to do.
Enjoy!
Thanks for the encouragement! I've had some PHP stuff in draft forever, maybe this will finally get me around to actually finishing it.
Omni! Tell us about the time you introduced me to a triple IPA and changed my perspective on IPAs forever. Great to see you here. I’ll resteem this to hopefully get you some more followers and interactions.
Welcome to the blockchain.
If I get sucked in and forget about all of the people I know in real life because of this, we all know who to blame!
Hi.
That's all I got.
Welcome to Steemit @omnicolor. :c)
Your story is fascinating - that of a successful developer - who is an avid ice-hockey player and craft beer... crafter?
Seriously - it sounds like a fairly good premise for a movie. ;c)
Oh and having the help of certain users to get started is already setting you off like a rocket. Good on you and I look forward to see what you'll be inspired to write about. :c)
I like to joke that I'm trying to make myself useful for the inevitable and impending zombie apocalypse. Ice hockey keeps me at least semi-healthy to outrun slow zombies. If the zombies are the fast kind I can hopefully outrun slow non-zombies.
And the beer will make me a welcome addition to any anti-zombie community! Alcohol has long been the social lubricant that keeps communities together.
"How do you write an introduce yourself to a new community without bragging or being self-deprecating?"
Hey, I think you did a pretty good job.
Creative writing sounds interesting @omnicolor
By the way, welcome to steemit. I'm looking forward to read more stories from you. 😁
Welcome to steemit, Omni! If you're thinking about creative writing please allow me to recommend @thewritersblock. You'll find workshops for poetry, fiction, non-fiction and more, plus some of the best folks I've met anywhere. Good luck with all your steem journeys!
Good to see another friend in here. Look forward to more.
Welcome to the shit show. We have cake.
welcome to the crypto-currency universe
Welcome to Steemit World .. I hope you will enjoy here :)
welcome to the crypto-currency universe thanks
Welcome @omicolor to steemit looking forward so seeing some amazing post.
Welcome to Steemit as well.
And I do wonder if you still have that C64.
And creative writing is always good ;-)
Unfortunately, being a military brat and having to move so often, keeping things like that doesn't really work. By the time I would get around to breaking out the old computer, it was time to pack up all of our belongs and go somewhere else.
Now I really wish I could play some of those old games. I have found a few MS-DOS ports of a few of them that I've been able to play, and despite the very limited sound and graphics, the actual story really holds up.
It's like having constraints on the window dressing around the story forces developers to actually pay attention to the meat of their product.
Believe it or not, I still have the old machine - but it gets harder and harder to actually hook it up to a screen nowadays.
There are emulators out there - maybe one of those can quench your thirst for some of those really old gems?
Thinking back to how it connected to the TVs that I had, you're absolutely right. Two of my TVs don't even have a coax connection, just DVI and HDMI.
I'm not terribly worried about it since I rarely make time for the games on modern systems that I want to play.
Welcome to steemit, it's great to see another programmer here, I know with people like you, steemit gonna get more fun and I love forward to you dev on this blockchain
hola.. welcome to steemit :)
upvoted!
You may visit my profile too
you're doing great already! thanks for being here-i enjoyed reading :) see you around and much love .. cant wait to see this shit blow up
A man who write codes and have a knack in creative writing and poems? My heart skipped a beat. Anyways, welcome to Steemit @omnicolor. Whatever you write, you will for sure do good. Just followed and upvoted you, I wanna hear more of you. Keep Steeming!