A Love Letter to The Web

Dear web,

It has been almost 20 years now since we’ve met. You’ve changed so much. you used to be full of flash games, banner ads, spyware, Blogger spam blogs, news articles, yahoo answers, quirky sites, and random forums.

But now you’ve consumed the world with news feeds, online stores, productivity apps, and...cat videos?

I know you’re like 9 years older than me but some of the things you do are let’s say...a bit questionable?

But I know your intentions are pure and I want you to know that you’ll always have a place inside my human heart as I am sure I’ll have a place in your server racks scattered through data centers in Europe, Russia, but mostly in America.

Anyways...

Backstory

A Tiny Nerd Emerges

Since I was 3 years old I was typing on the keyboard waiting for the modem to finish so I can dive into MINICLIP to check the latest flash games.

The internet was my best friend.

When there was a problem it was always there to help me out.

Over the years I've learned how to boot windows to safe mode, install missing drivers, mod games, use cheat engine to hack pet society, update the windows registry, merge hard drives, burn discs for the PlayStation 1 & 2, install custom firmware for the PlayStation 3, Root an android phone, Jailbreak the iPad, create a virtual LAN server, emulate Atari games, and a whole set of other things.

The internet was my teacher, and the best thing it taught me was how to teach myself.

A Tiny Artist

I also had a thing for drawing, I used to draw in class, draw on the walls 👀, draw wherever.

I wasn't particularly good at it, but I liked it anyway, I liked how when you put shapes together they can express something more than themselves (5 lines and 1 circle can represent a stick man), I liked how colors play off of each other and that you can mix them together to create a totally different color.

Drawing is free form, no limits, not bound by rules like software.

What to do with my life?!

So obviously I liked computers, but I also liked design, so I was torn between choosing computer science or graphic design.

So when the time came to finish high school I said if my grades are enough I’ll go to computer science, if not, graphic design will do.

And my grades turned out to be better than I expected so, COMPUTER SCIENCE HERE I COME!

Death of My Design Career ☠️

I’ve thought I had to bury my design career do the graves.

I really loved design.

I thought maybe I could learn a bit on the side (from ctrlpaint and drawabox) just so I can hold onto it without letting go.

But I knew in the end, at best it will only be some form of hobby, nothing more.

Light Bulb 💡!

During my first year of college, there were events inviting people from different fields in the industry to show us what they do at work.

So one day, I’ve attended one about web development.

I didn’t know much about web development at the time, I’ve only heard a little but not enough to connect the dots.

I’ve naively assumed that everything in computer science will all be about ones and zeros, discrete logic, nothing else but binary.

Creativity and subjectivity do not compute here, Please throw immediately out of the nearest heat reducing vent opener (computer talk for “window”).

So when that dude in the event started opening an HTML file and started writing styles in CSS, I was like what on earth is that dude doing? ...Did I come to the right event?

Then the light bulb came.

Wait what?! You can design with code 🤯!!!

Massive fireworks flew out of my brain 💥

This. is. what. I. want. to. DO!

I can build stuff with the computer and I can still play with shapes and colors at the same time!

This must be career heaven, I was in awe!

Why I love the Web

The web essentially gives you an empty canvas, you can fill it with anything you want and you can share it with whoever you want without them needing to install anything besides a browser.

You can build useful things, cool things, not so useful things, anything really 😂

And it's open, there is no gate-keepers (presumably), you don't pay to deploy your site to an app store, It's always backward compatible so your site is guaranteed to work as long as the web is alive 🤯, and it's democratic, decisions are made by a diverse committee, not a benevolent tyrant.

I love the web, and I'll always build for the web.

Best regards,

A citizen of the interwebs.