Hello world
Hey! I'm Tim, a front-end developer from the Netherlands, and this is my blog. Well... actually it's probably my twelfth attempt at starting a blog - the others never saw daylight. But this time I'm actually hitting publish, so that's something!
I've been thinking about doing this for a while. A few friends of mine - Bas, Jan, and Albert - have been sharing their stories and insights online, and I've always thought that was pretty cool. So here I am, finally creating my own space to write about stuff I learn and think about.
How I Got Here
My fascination with computers started way before I got into web development. When I was around 6 or 7, computers weren't something every household had - at least, that's what I thought as a kid. Our neighbors had several computers because of the father's bank job, and whenever I visited, I hoped someone would let me use one. For me, getting a computer seemed even more exciting than having a Nintendo or Sega.
When I was 9, we got our hands on one of our neighbors' old computers. It ran DOS and had some games on it. I was over the moon! It would boot up to something called "Menu 88" - I always imagined that meant it was from 1988, but it was probably just made with PC Menu. I remember the time I got my hands on Windows 3.1 installation disks - all 25 of them. After finally getting it installed, I was so afraid of losing Windows that I kept the computer running for a whole week because I had no idea how to start Windows after turning it off!
A few years later, when I was 12, my real adventure into web development began. A friend and I decided to build a website. It looked horrible, and most of our time went into finding which space-themed background was just about right to background-repeat. We started with Microsoft FrontPage, building basic pages and feeling like proper web developers. Then I discovered Dreamweaver with all its fancy features - I mean, those buttons with the wood texture that slid glass panels over them on hover? That was peak web design in my mind back then!
As with most things you do when you're young, I kind of lost interest in web development after a while. I ended up studying marketing in college, though I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. It wasn't until I took an online marketing minor that I got excited about the internet again. I dove into SEO and SEA, and that became my focus during my internships.
After graduating, my friend Karst and I decided to start our own company. We focused on SEO and SEA, and as our business grew, we found ourselves spending more and more time coordinating with web agencies for our clients' websites. At some point we just looked at each other and said: "Why don't we just build these sites ourselves?" That's how we got into WordPress development. I enjoyed building websites, but as we took on more projects, I started noticing how page builders were slowing everything down. Simple changes would take ages to save, and the sites just felt... heavy. That's when I started exploring custom WordPress themes, and before I knew it, I was spending countless hours diving deep into PHP and CSS.
Early days of our company. Karst mastering the art of screen-pointing - a skill essential to any tech professional's photo portfolio - © het Urkerland
Around that time, WordPress announced they were working on something called Gutenberg, mentioning it would use React. Without even checking if I actually needed to know React to work with Gutenberg (spoiler: I didn't), I figured I better start learning it right away. So there I was, getting up at 5:30 every morning to study React before work. I watched courses from Scott Tolinski, Wes Bos, and Brian Holt (I think it was via Frontendmasters), and I was "hooked" - or well, not really, those were still the class component days.
After a while, I realized I wanted to do development full-time, but that didn't really fit with our company. Karst had his own plans too, and we both wanted to learn from others, so we decided to close up shop and look for jobs in tech. I landed at New Black, where I suddenly had to work with Angular and AngularJS. Those were some rough months - pretty sure I only kept my job because I knew my way around CSS files. But after a year, I got to join a React project, and I've been working on that for the past five years.
Where Things Are Now
Looking back at these past five years, my perspective on front-end development has really shifted. I started out just wanting to make things look pretty on the web, but now I get excited about all kinds of things - trying out new tech, building proof of concepts, finding better ways to structure projects. It's especially rewarding when you can create something that makes other developers' work easier.
The front-end landscape keeps evolving. Server-Side Rendering is a good example - these meta-frameworks have made it so much more accessible. Right now I'm deep into learning about local-first development. Building apps with local-first principles is such a different way of thinking about data. I've got a lot to figure out still, but that's the fun part.
You know what hasn't changed since those Microsoft FrontPage days? That excitement when something finally works. The challenges are different now - definitely more complex than picking the perfect starfield background - but the feeling is just the same. I'm not usually one to share what I'm learning, but maybe writing about it will help me understand things better.
Looking Forward
I'll be sharing bits and pieces of what I learn along the way - snippets that make my life easier, solutions I've found to tricky problems, that kind of thing. I also want to highlight cool stuff other people are building because there's so much awesome work happening in the tech community.
So yeah, here's to attempt number twelve - the one that finally saw daylight. Thanks for reading, and see you in the next post!