{ "uuid": [ { "value": "27926937-f426-490f-ac0a-454d9d2def37" } ], "langcode": [ { "value": "en" } ], "type": [ { "target_id": "daily_email", "target_type": "node_type", "target_uuid": "8bde1f2f-eef9-4f2d-ae9c-96921f8193d7" } ], "revision_timestamp": [ { "value": "2025-05-11T09:00:57+00:00" } ], "revision_uid": [ { "target_type": "user", "target_uuid": "b8966985-d4b2-42a7-a319-2e94ccfbb849" } ], "revision_log": [], "status": [ { "value": true } ], "uid": [ { "target_type": "user", "target_uuid": "b8966985-d4b2-42a7-a319-2e94ccfbb849" } ], "title": [ { "value": "How I started programming" } ], "created": [ { "value": "2022-08-28T00:00:00+00:00" } ], "changed": [ { "value": "2025-05-11T09:00:57+00:00" } ], "promote": [ { "value": false } ], "sticky": [ { "value": false } ], "default_langcode": [ { "value": true } ], "revision_translation_affected": [ { "value": true } ], "path": [ { "alias": "\/daily\/2022-08-28\/how-started-programming", "langcode": "en" } ], "body": [ { "value": "\n
In 2007, I was working in the IT sector in a Desktop Support role but hadn't done any coding professionally.<\/p>\n\n
In my spare time, I was a black belt in Tae Kwon-Do and enjoyed training at a few different schools. Because of my IT experience, I was asked if I could create a website for one of the schools - somewhere that we could post information and class times for new starters, as well as news articles and competition results.<\/p>\n\n
This would be my introduction to programming.<\/p>\n\n
I started learning what I needed to know, starting with HTML and CSS - experimenting with a template that I found online and was able to tweak to match the school's colours.<\/p>\n\n
I was able to complete the first version of the website with static HTML pages and CSS but had to manually create a new HTML page for every new news article and edit existing pages manually.<\/p>\n\n
I wanted to make it more dynamic, and started to learn about PHP and MySQL from video courses and online forums.<\/p>\n\n
After posting a question about some PHP code that I'd written, someone suggested that I look at content management systems - namely Drupal, which was used for that forum (I have a screenshot of the reply<\/a>). This was a new concept to me as until that point, I'd written everything so far myself whilst learning it.<\/p>\n\n I remember evaluating Drupal alongside some others - rebuilding the same website a few different times, but stuck with Drupal and relaunched it on Drupal 6 and a custom theme that I'd created from the original templates.<\/p>\n\n I signed up for a Drupal.org account, started to do some freelance work for a local web design agency, and built a new website for a local cattery.<\/p>\n\n I started blogging, attending meetups, and when an opportunity to switch careers to software development came along, I applied for and got the job.<\/p>\n\n That job was also using Drupal and, in another email, I'll write more about why I still like and use Drupal years later.<\/p>\n\n ",
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"processed": "\n In 2007, I was working in the IT sector in a Desktop Support role but hadn't done any coding professionally.<\/p>\n\n In my spare time, I was a black belt in Tae Kwon-Do and enjoyed training at a few different schools. Because of my IT experience, I was asked if I could create a website for one of the schools - somewhere that we could post information and class times for new starters, as well as news articles and competition results.<\/p>\n\n This would be my introduction to programming.<\/p>\n\n I started learning what I needed to know, starting with HTML and CSS - experimenting with a template that I found online and was able to tweak to match the school's colours.<\/p>\n\n I was able to complete the first version of the website with static HTML pages and CSS but had to manually create a new HTML page for every new news article and edit existing pages manually.<\/p>\n\n I wanted to make it more dynamic, and started to learn about PHP and MySQL from video courses and online forums.<\/p>\n\n After posting a question about some PHP code that I'd written, someone suggested that I look at content management systems - namely Drupal, which was used for that forum (I have a screenshot of the reply<\/a>). This was a new concept to me as until that point, I'd written everything so far myself whilst learning it.<\/p>\n\n I remember evaluating Drupal alongside some others - rebuilding the same website a few different times, but stuck with Drupal and relaunched it on Drupal 6 and a custom theme that I'd created from the original templates.<\/p>\n\n I signed up for a Drupal.org account, started to do some freelance work for a local web design agency, and built a new website for a local cattery.<\/p>\n\n I started blogging, attending meetups, and when an opportunity to switch careers to software development came along, I applied for and got the job.<\/p>\n\n That job was also using Drupal and, in another email, I'll write more about why I still like and use Drupal years later.<\/p>\n\n ",
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