“When code is able to drive tech to achieve something, to make people’s lives a little bit better, that’s when the magic happens”- Moz
National Coding Week runs from 18 – 25 September, with the aim to inspire children and adults into careers in technology. In support of this, we sat down with our developers to find out what made them start coding and why they still love it…
Michael
“There is always a new puzzle to solve.”
How did you get into web development?
My journey into programming was sparked by an early fascination with computers. Some of my earliest memories involve my dad teaching me how to set up and play games on our ageing Commodore 64.
We decided to start a family business creating websites. I initially took on the hardware and support aspects, but as time went on, I started delving into the intricacies of software and how websites functioned, and started learning PHP, MySQL, and Linux. I have continued to work with these skills throughout my career in programming.
What do you love most about your job?
The day to day work is generally interesting, there is always a new puzzle to solve and with that comes a great sense of satisfaction when elegantly solving a challenging problem.
What has been your favourite project so far?
My favourite project I’ve worked on was IFLScience, mostly because of its scale and the challenges/solutions that come along with that. (I had nothing to do with the current site, all the parts I worked on have been relegated to history).
My favourite Infotex project would probably have to be the Children’s Commissioner site; it had some interesting challenges and was overall a fun project.
How would you describe your latest project to a 6 year old?
We used a tool called the WordPress Page Builder to help us make the website. It’s like building with colourful blocks, and it’s fun!
Moz
“Pragmatic use of tech driven by code can help to progress a career.”
How did you get into web development?
I’ve had an interest since the 1990’s (before we had graphical interfaces), that started out as batch files and quickly turned into QBasic. At secondary school I unknowingly took the next step when I created a Visual Basic for DOS (disk operating system) maths educational program to fill a need for one of our teachers, who went on to use it more widely, to the annoyance of the IT department.
What do you love most about your work?
For me programming is a means to an end: when code is able to drive tech to achieve something, to make people’s lives a little bit better, that’s when the magic happens. At work that might be the ability for code to analyse a body of data that humans couldn’t practically do, or for a business to succeed in ways it otherwise couldn’t.
Outside of work I’ve long been fascinated by the interconnection between code and the real-world. Things like Raspberry Pi’s or Arduino’s that allow relatively small amounts of code to either control or monitor physical real-world items are a particular favourite of mine.
How would you describe your latest project to a 6 year old?
I used code to take thousands of news stories and changed them to work on a different system to help keep a little bit of car history alive.
Are there any next steps in your career that you’re excited about?
I’d look at it the other way: that pragmatic use of tech driven by code can help to progress a career.
The fact that things like Amazon’s solutions allow us to write just a few lines of code to create, and modify, entire virtual worlds is very powerful. It’s starting to become possible within the SME arena to couple things like this to some of the relatively large, even real-time, data processing systems. One can imagine some very cool solutions just over the horizon, allowing a few lines of code to determine how a structure should dynamically handle some event, that could, for example, allow a system to scale resources down to avoid wasting energy at quiet times, or could respond to a high load attack by filtering traffic and/or increasing capacity.
Gareth
“I can’t choose a favourite project, it would be like picking a favourite child!”
How did you get into web development?
I was working in a company that made paint colour cards and various promotional materials and the production manager and I spent a lot of our time programming in Excel to handle customer stocks. I realised I preferred that to the rest of my job, so I left to do a MSc in Advanced IT, specialising in software development.
What do you love most about your work?
I love the problem solving aspect of programming, I still get a buzz when I figure out a way of doing something that’s been puzzling me for a while.
What has been your favourite project so far?
I can’t choose a favourite project, it would be like picking a favourite child!
How would you describe your latest project to a 6 year old?
I’m working on an App that will help to make it easier for people to learn about forests and have fun outdoors.
Chris
“That moment at the start of a programming project when there are so many possibilities is still very exciting”
How did you get into web development?
When I was a kid, we had an Intel 8088 machine which I used to write simple text adventures in GW Basic. It was a relatively simple programming language that taught me the basics of variable assignments and looping. I think we are missing something simple like GW Basic in today’s early learning.
What do you love most about your work?
Creating an empty folder and then structuring and writing files and code to produce something that people can interact with. That moment at the start of a programming project when there are so many possibilities is still very exciting.
How would you describe your latest project to a 6 year old?
I’m currently experimenting with ways to talk to a computer in English so that it can do complicated things for me in a program I’ve written.
Are there any next steps in your career that you’re excited about?
There are always new and interesting things to play with in development so it’s easy to find lots to be excited by.
I have a 4 year old and I’m looking forward to seeing how he interacts with computers. I hope that the modern curriculum places a greater emphasis on interacting with, and particularly programming, computers.
Outside of that I’m very interested in AI and how I can use it in my programming.
Jono
“I enjoy seeing the end product and how it helps people out, making their lives easier”
How did you get into web development?
By accident. I had a degree in Economics, but didn’t want to go into finance. I took a business NVQ while looking for a job, and ended up helping the other students with the computer parts of the course. This led to a job in IT training, which was short lived, then to a job in software support, which slowly introduced software development.
What do you love most about your work?
When it goes well, I enjoy seeing the end product and how it helps people out – making their lives easier.
How would you describe your latest project to a 6 year old?
An application that is for the running of woodland courses, that allows users to register their interest in a course and then say how they feel each day of the course.
Richard
“I’m excited about seeing how AI will provide an opportunity to transform the way coding is carried out”
How did you get into web development?
My first experience with coding was as a child running simple commands using BASIC on my dad’s ZX Spectrum. As there were no formal coding lessons at school, it was not until university that I had the opportunity to explore programming in greater detail. It was there I started using FORTRAN to simulate Physics experiments and this was the point at which I developed a passion for coding. I much preferred this to the time consuming setup and repeat of experiments with physical equipment.
What do you love most about your work?
I enjoy the sense of achievement once something is working as it should, and the ability to connect different systems to allow them to communicate with one another.
How would you describe your latest project to a 6 year old?
I have been working on a website which shows different items which can be bought from the website’s business.
I wrote a list of instructions which is called code. When a person visits the website the code that I have written will show the words in different sizes and using different colours. This code allows the people to view the website on a phone, tablet or computer and to have a clear layout on any device.
This coding also allowed information to be taken from the old website to the new one.
Are there any next steps in your career that you’re excited about?
I’m excited about seeing how AI will provide an opportunity to transform the way coding is carried out with the potential to aid debugging of issues and testing.
Read more about National Coding Week and see how you can get involved.
