How I Fell In Love With Backend Development

It all started in my pursuit of “How do I make people update their status?”.

I had a basic knowledge of HTML and CSS, knew a Little about DOM, and nothing else.

I came up with a little Javascript code from the very little I knew, that did some trick on the click of a button.

var status = document.getElementById(‘status-input’).value;

document.getElementById(‘show-status’).append(‘<p>’+status+’</p>’);

This copied the text from the input field to the main page as it does on Facebook’s status update. I started dancing when it worked, I reloaded the page, and…. it was gone. I was terrified, “Where is my status update?”.

I kept thinking, how can I make this status update stay forever(at least for as long as I want). So I jumped into google search(like I still do when I am stuck). I then read about databases and I thought “oooh makes sense”.

So now how do I access this database?. I searched even further and saw something called MySQL. I have heard that somewhere before and where ever I saw MySQL in my search, I somehow found Php just somewhere around the corner. I started to think, “so I cant use this MySQL without Php?”(i was wrong though). I decided I will learn PHP and MySQL. I downloaded a pdf document titled “Php for dummies”. I read it everywhere I went to including the gym and even on the road. I practiced and I was getting addicted. Then I thought, “let me build something”. I found a video on youtube titled ‘how to build a social network’. I saw almost all the episodes till I was bored and I wanted to build something on my own. So I started building a developer’s community, it required a lot of logical thinking and I loved it. I kept coding, manipulating data, and querying relations with MySQL. It was awesome. I was in love with the whole thinking process that I forgot CSS was a crucial part of web development. I built ugly stuff that worked very well, I hated styling and thought it was a waste of my time, but what did I know? This was barely the beginning.

Some months later, while I was on my Six months SIWES program. I needed a place to work, and I made up my mind that if it wasn’t in a Software development firm, then I wasn’t gonna work. Through someone that knows someone that knows someone, I got a place. I felt I was so good at what I do and I intended to walk into that firm and kick ass. On getting there, I was asked “Have you worked with any frameworks” and I’m like “huh?”

“…frame what?..you mean like Ajax?…” I felt stupid. Then I was asked to read up on ‘Laravel’ and learn it. Laravel?….and that is where it all began…