How I became a Web Developer

Or - My Full Circle Moment with the Moorhuhn

It must have been sometime in the early 2000s, if I think about it. MySpace was just getting huge, after school we'd all log into MSN or ICQ (I still know my number today) and everyone was obsessively collecting Pokémon or hunting "Moorhühner". I was definitely one of them.

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And I believe I owe it to the Moorhuhn and Pokémon that I am where I am today. Back then, when modems used to scream in pain when you dialed into the internet, my parents rationed my internet time, so I had to use it wisely. (And also because back then, it was still billed by the minute...) So I'd daily browse through the usual sites. Pokemon.de always had the coolest design, which fascinated me even back then, and the best games. The Moorhuhn forum was a community of people who... well... loved playing Moorhuhn. I was actually pretty good at it back in the day. But that's another story. Many of those users had their own fan pages. So I decided to build one too.

An older friend of mine, whom I knew from the music club, had her own FTP server since she attended a media college. From her I got my own little space on the server for free to host my website there.

I really didn't have much idea how any of it worked. I downloaded other websites, opened them in Microsoft FrontPage, and eventually figured out how everything was built up. At some point I knew there needed to be an index.html from which links went to other HTML files.

I styled directly in FrontPage. Inline and directly in the HTML code. I basically used it like Word. In the middle of the page a table. First row was a header image. Left column was the navbar. Right column was the content. And that was actually kind of secondary. A few cool images, some text with lots of spelling mistakes. Zip — upload to the server. Got a free domain and proudly posted the fan site in the Moorhuhn forum. Boom. The spark was lit.

Many websites would follow. Every week they'd get a new "design." I got better and eventually switched to Adobe Dreamweaver and learned that you could do the styling in a separate CSS file. Later I built the website for the big band where I played trumpet. That one got a new design every month too. It became a hobby.

And I could call myself a webmaster. Supercool!*

*not... in retrospective

It simply fascinated me. I could shape the internet. I told the browser what should be there and how it should look, and someone else could see it. And I could call myself a webmaster. Supercool!*
*not... in retrospective

That was what I wanted to do. But for a media college and for school I was always too lazy. Besides, I think it was also a difficult age. So I started a technical apprenticeship as a CNC turner/miller/grinder. There I had to program too.

The years passed, I switched from production to quality assurance and later to measurement program creation. So the technical and programming were always somehow my companions.

A few years ago my wife got the chance for a PhD position at a marine research institute. She asked me what I thought about moving to an island where Dutch was spoken? I thought "yeah, nice! Curaçao!" Turns out it was about the North Sea and the island in question was Texel.

I'd never heard of it before, but the pictures looked beautiful. So I decided to come along and used it as a chance to try something different. Namely, what I'd always wanted to do. Build websites.

The following year I tried the career switch. I participated in a full-stack development bootcamp. There I learned to build progressive web apps based on React, Node, Express, and MongoDB. Though I noticed right away there that while it was fun and challenging, the design of the apps was always more important to me and was the most enjoyable. So I also took another course in responsive web design. There I learned how to build websites so they look good on any screen size and adapt dynamically. Alongside I learned Dutch. Every single day.

While shopping by bicycle, I'd always ride past Webjongens' office. I thought to myself, how cool would it actually be to get a job here on Texel as a web developer. So I made it my goal. I had no professional experience, but I was motivated.

When I sent my application, I got a response from the boss a few minutes later. He said I should come by today. Otherwise he'd be on vacation for a few weeks. I didn't even have time to think about it further. So I headed over immediately. Since I wrote the application in Dutch and it also said in my CV that I spoke the language, we conducted the interview in Dutch. That wasn't planned, but I think it impressed him.

And as you might already guess, I got the job. A place where I could learn and gain experience. And that I did.

I got my own project after a short while and was mega proud when the website went live. Many projects followed. The sites got bigger and more extensive. I could contribute myself when it came to creativity and tech. Through the responsive design course I'd taken previously, we could improve many things in our team and together made a big leap forward.

So I made it — the career switch as a web developer. Instead of Curaçao it became Texel, and instead of React it became Joomla and Kirby. In the meantime I've trained 3 colleagues here and they all learned from me (...and also adopted some of my peculiarities)

And all of this because of the Moorhuhn.