千里之行，始於足下
famous Chinese proverb
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Tool Pool is also a journey for me and, in time, perhaps for others as well. This one has many beginnings – not just its conception as I was building a fence, but also my start into proper programming, which itself began with learning rudimentary PHP and hand-coding a prototype using PHP and MySQL with Notepad++, then beginning to learn to use a proper IDE (PhpStorm), and beginning to build a proper application using a proper framework and proper object-oriented programming practices.
That’s a lot of ground to cover, but I am looking forward to each new challenge. As mentioned earlier, I have decades of deep IT experience but I have always said that I am not a developer. I am filling in that gap now, one step at a time.
I had lots of ideas and usually even more reasons for not jumping into the idea. I actually started a project with a friend [in 2009] but we quickly realized that our approach was faulty so we aborted it and learned from it. I’m not a good programmer but I am a great planner and coordinator. I can execute anything – as long as I have a good programmer on my side.
Me, in June 2012
In the spirit of learning to walk before I can run, I felt it was important to me to write actual code the hard way, without the use of elegant frameworks and tools to aid and assist me.
Sure, I don’t need to be a mechanic to drive a car. But if I am responsible for keeping it running, then I must know how it is put together. Equally with an IDE and a framework: it’s my code so I must understand how it works, or else it won’t run for very long.
Obviously nobody would want to use Notepad++ for an entire project (looking at you, Ole!) but it is necessary to understand the basics before using magic to do the work for me. To have any chance of fixing problems later on, I need to know and understand how the magic works.
That’s why my first release is a hand-written prototype. It’s not pretty, it’s not elegant – heck, it’s not even complete – and it was never meant to be any of those things. The same is true for this blog. It was meant to give me a basis to work with, and an understanding and very practical, hands-on experience that prepares me for the work ahead of me. (And there is going to be a lot of work.)
The prototype is also useful as bait for you, dear reader, to raise your curiosity and perhaps get a little response from you. Every response, every bug, every feature idea, every taunt; anything and everything I learn is a stepping stone on my road ahead.