Salam and hello everyone!

I want to announce that I finally reach 1K followers on DEV! 🎉🥳 Thank you everyone for sticking with me, read all of my stuff 😊

But today, it is not about any tutorial. I feel that it is time for me to revisit my dream from day 1, and what I want to do from now on. One heck of the journey, but I am still in the beginning.

From Where It Begins

I started know the first code back in the Myspace era, where you have to customise the templates, so that you become one of the cool kids on the block. But did that makes me go into programming? No, I just do it out of fun of the fame race.

But I started to see this code stuff when I was 16, when my cousin, who is studying in his community college nearby my hometown, suddenly shows how he created a website to me (he didn't become a developer though). Just imagine, from dreaming of becoming a doctor and following both my parents' step, to become a programmer. But that time, it is not enough for me to have a clear dream of becoming one, just yet!

I explored a lot of stuffs just to seek my purpose, I have been a teacher in local school, become karate instructor (since I was a karate athlete), and graphic and motion designer. Those were fun times! However, the stuff didn't really satiate my hunger.

As The Door Opens

Here in my country, we have something called foundational studies, which kind of have the same level of diploma programme. I took 2-year foundational studies, and during that time, I am exposed to lots of these programming stuffs, both in academics and self-exploration. Learning about C in class, and Python during free time in Coursera (shout out to Dr Charles 🧙🏻‍♂️), I started to see my dream as a programmer, just it feels uncertain of the state of the industry during that time (plus I have crippled self-esteem for a reason). Do I give up? Nope!

While I am doing design stuffs and organising some workshops on Adobe (was an ambassador before), I tried to really understand how industry is. Except, I didn't really look into local industry, but rather the trend of the world. Twitter is one of the biggest contribution of where I am now, thanks to all communities out there and DEV.

Achieving top scores in software development subject, I have some confidence in it, but the path remains unclear. Right after graduation in 2018, I feel like I need to force myself to tap into one, and the one that feels close to home for me is frontend and mobile development, since I have design background. So, I decided to become a research assistant at the same university I studied before for a year, developing an app. But here's the problem. I don't know how to develop an app 🥶

So, I went to my university library (during this time, my old laptop has broken, so I had to go to my university library and use the computer) and learn some stuff. I just choose to pay $20 for a Pro subscription for only one month on Codecademy. I don't know what taking over me, but every day I spent my time learning as much as I can for a month. Going hometown, I just borrow my mom's laptop to do the same.

My First Successful App

Soon after I enrolled Pro subscription on Codecademy, I created an app for the whole year of 2018. Without knowing the best practice, I just throw whatever I know about React Native. Little did I know, as the time passed by, I completed one app by myself. How awesome is that, right?

That is my first step going to the coding world. Building something, get some confidence, then I step out to the industry world, learning from a lot of awesome people I had. I am in utmost grateful to Him, I met a lot of great people from different walks of life.

Well, my dream becomes clearer. I want to be a really awesome frontend developer there is. I head out to communities out there, learning lots of stuffs, but of course I need to build myself some stuff!

The Valley of My Dream Graph

In 2020, there are a lot of stuffs going on. The lost of my loved ones, and several months later the COVID came, the closure of my current company at that time. I feel lost. I don't know what to do. I spent days and weeks and months with playing games, just to distract myself from those.

I see my dream diminishing, lost interest, become astray of what I really want to be. One day, I saw an ad in my social media about an event that I heard previously, but somehow catches my attention. Jomlaunch in 2020. A local event in my area, for all developers, creators, and solopreneurs. I didn't expect I've created bonds with a lot of amazing guys. Because of them, the inspiration that diminishing is now rekindled.

People Trust In You

They ask me to build a web app for a day, and throw it on Digital Ocean. And who can guess, that we manage to secure a win and get some credits and merchandises, right? At that point, it becomes my "aha!" moment, and explore a lot of stuffs, learn and relearn stuffs until I understand most of the fundamental stuff of web development.

I wrote a lot of stuff. From Medium in 2019, and now actively writing articles right here in DEV, and get my articles features multiple times, I get the motivation to keep writing and teach a lot of code stuff, especially on React.

But of course, life is not a straight line. I got demotivated, I stopped writing for quite a long time, and try to get back my writing habits. Now, I just want to write when I feel I want to.

Writing is liberating. When you write things about coding, I have to recollect what I understand previously, and structure it, so that people can read and understand what I tried to write about. As you write, you are actually teaching yourself, and gain much more understanding, since you need to do the research as well.

Did I Reached My Goal?

I worked on some companies, and all of them give their trust on me to develop a high-end frontend stuff, aiming for a pixel-perfect quality. Not just that, I believe that if I learn fullstack, I can reach different understanding on how we can further improve my standing on frontend development.

Well, today I think that somehow my dream is as clear as it is, which is to become an awesome frontend developer, and I reached it! 5 years it takes for me to reach where I am today.

But, not just frontend stuff, I learn a lot of things - backend, architecture, the opinions, developments, entrepreneurship. And I gained a lot of insights on how a product should be.

Discovered Different Goal

Throughout my journey, I interacted with a lot of people and system, and somehow I feel that more and more domain has been unlocked. I love how Dan Abramov, Evan You, Rich Harris and others discuss some stuffs, agreeing, disagreeing on how a library should be. I love how Lee Robinson interact with other developers as a DevRel of Vercel. To reach their point, I need to widen my vision - study lots and lots of stuff.

As I stick with my goal, I discovered a different goal - to become something like DevRel - just talk about these code stuffs, the architectures, the challenges, the "hit-the-mark" question, so that I can solve the pain points. These discussion spark my other part of my passion - to exchange these infos.

My Next Dream

So, what is my dream now?

Well, I want to be an evangelist. I love to read, involve in discussion on how stuff is built. Language-agnostic, celebrating different approaches, solving the problems on the fundamental parts. It can be DevRel, or Individual Contributor, or anything revolves around that domain.

I can imagine myself, standing on a stage, telling a company's architecture decisions.

I know it is still far away from what I have now, and I need tons and tons and tons of reading, learning, and exploring, but that doesn't stop me. I dreamt of frontend development, and I have become one.

So, that will be my next milestone. While doing that, I will build my reputation, and probably my course in the meantime (while assisting bootcamps in my local communities), keep the development talks going through one of the platform I started.

Am I that great? I've seen far much better people, given the same experience I had. I feel the insecurities. That doesn't mean that I need to stop now. I just have to continue running, or brisking, or walking, or crawling, but I need to focus.

So many people starts to see me as a figure. I can feel the pressure from lots of people expecting the best out of me. Some times, I just want to tap out, and have a relax pace. But hey, at least people trust you more than yourselves, which means people trust my judge! I will try my best to fulfill that image.

Conclusion

This is a time for a different adventure. I will look forward to exploring more stuffs and talking about them. If you might have any suggestion, please let me know in the comment section below, and I might look into it :)

And again, without you guys, I won't be here, keep writing about code stuffs. Apologise if my grammatical errors are everywhere, but I try to improve from time to time. Delivery quality! Thanks for reading up until this point, and have a great day ahead!

Until next day, and peace be upon ya!