Revisiting my old posts to see how much i have grown

[Deger99]

I just remembered my login for this "old" account i made when i was 15. When i check my posts etc it is insane to see how bad i was at programming and naive i was haha (who wasn't).

I have actually a professional career as a software engineer and have worked with it for over three years. And tibia ot is the way i got interested in programming and now actually have a career as one.

I do not know where i am going with this thread but i just wanted to visit this account for some nostalgic feelings.

 

[222222]

Yeah a lot of people from Otland and TPForums (another Tibia programming forum) ended up in IT, most often in software engineering or cyber security. I remember starting my programming journey back when I was 11 and started making scripts for OT servers, learning about networking, setting up a database, a website, etc. I didn't even know PHP was a programming language at that time. I literally thought it was only a configuration file of some sorts in xampp - LOL! I hung out a lot on Otfans back in the day and then later on Otland when it became popular as well.

Had it not been for (Open) Tibia, I honestly don't know what I would be doing today. It is the only reason I got into tech. And I know a few IRL that did as well. I haven't played the game in ages at this point but I still lurk around and build Tibia related stuff. Studied computer science, worked some in tech, landed a dream job at Spotify a few years ago during Covid and started my own ecommerce business at the same time (built it from the ground up [excluding payment processor], which I work full-time on today. So my life has shifted a bit from software engineering to ecommerce and logistics, but it's all part of tech in some way. I still make at least 1 commit per day on Github for example (which is something I set as a goal 2 years ago) and help contribute to open source projects, and have gotten so much more into cybersecurity in recent years. Everything I learned stems from OT/Tibia development. Projects I've done throughout the years and such. I was quite a slow learner and "sleeper" in terms of programming (for about a decade), but in the last 6 or so years is when I truly saw my progress in programming and started building large projects for fun. Programming pretty much every day and trying new things every month.

Now I'm all about ecommerce though, it's the new chapter of my life. It excites me more than software engineering at the moment. To see the warehouse grow and learn all about the industry is what gets me up every morning. To see and touch real things and not just some code in a cloud. Learning all about marketing, sales, entrepreneurship and leadership, talking to customers and suppliers. I had learned a bit of all these things in the last 12 or so years and when I finally put it all together, I realized I belong in ecommerce. It's a bit of marketing, a bit of software engineering, a bit of customer service, a bit of logistics, etc. And it's been going great since I launched 3 ish years ago, couldn't be happier at the moment honestly.

Few years ago I wanted to apply for a job in cyber security (in counter-intelligence @ the government) but it required me to go to police training first, so I skipped that. Glad I skipped it and found my passion elsewhere. But I'll never ever leave this community. Might be gone for a while but I'll always come back. There's no place like home!

 

[Cafumbre]

Shut up guys, not all of us are successfull.
Let some of us wallow in our misery and enjoy this trash game that has kept us addicted for decades without bringing the horror of reality into it.

 

[222222]

Shut up guys, not all of us are successfull.
Let some of us wallow in our misery and enjoy this trash game that has kept us addicted for decades without bringing the horror of reality into it.

Whatever you have learned throughout the years, put it out on the web. Make a website, a blog, or post it on open source communities. Doesn't matter what it is. Just make sure it is well documented and well written. Hell, even start a YouTube channel just teaching whatever you know. When you start to get recognized, that's when everything changes. I was doing small private Tibia projects for over a decade. And I didn't learn much doing it. I didn't progress much, if at all. But as soon as I started building real life apps using the exact same code, just not for Tibia, I started learning so much more and I suddenly had more responsibility. I maintain a NPM package today that has a bit over 300k weekly downloads now. It aint much to some, but I must be doing something right I surppose. And people's apps rely on it.

I used to be a leech on Stackoverflow like 10+ years ago. I'd literally delete the question right after getting an answer (true douchebag behavior, I know) because I didn't want anyone else to get the code. And I put no time into learning how to actually code. I just found pieces of code online and put it together. When I started sharing solutions and getting my answers removed from other toxic douchebags (lmao), that's when I realized I had grown and became an actual programmer.

I think that whatever you do in life, just share your knowledge. You start getting connections too by doing that. I know pure idiots who have successful careers today. One guy runs a tiny blog that just teaches basic tech stuff. I mean the very basic stuff everyone on OtLand even knew 10 years ago. It got him recognition though, and he landed many jobs because of it. People rather have a "known" person than an unknown.

A YouTube channel with just 1k subs teaching how to code is better than a calculator and weather app on Github.

For me, I decided to quit and start my own business. I always had it in me and I never really liked working for somebody else. I like pushing my own limits and building things for myself, by myself. So I looked at whatever knowledge I had learned in the last 10-15 years and I decided ecommerce was it (programming, databases, networking, marketing, photo editing, logistics, etc.). Your "it" may be something else. Find your passion and just work on it. Just don't go broke doing it. And whenever you learn something new, teach it to somebody else. Sometimes I just post stuff online as notes for myself, in case I forget. And if it helped 1 person (besides myself), then it was worth it. Pretty much everything is worth sharing. Someone has to be that person that teaches the very basics of something (especially in tech). Be that guy. It'll pay off in the long run.

 

[Degerman]

Yeah a lot of people from Otland and TPForums (another Tibia programming forum) ended up in IT, most often in software engineering or cyber security. I remember starting my programming journey back when I was 11 and started making scripts for OT servers, learning about networking, setting up a database, a website, etc. I didn't even know PHP was a programming language at that time. I literally thought it was only a configuration file of some sorts in xampp - LOL! I hung out a lot on Otfans back in the day and then later on Otland when it became popular as well.

Had it not been for (Open) Tibia, I honestly don't know what I would be doing today. It is the only reason I got into tech. And I know a few IRL that did as well. I haven't played the game in ages at this point but I still lurk around and build Tibia related stuff. Studied computer science, worked some in tech, landed a dream job at Spotify a few years ago during Covid and started my own ecommerce business at the same time (built it from the ground up [excluding payment processor], which I work full-time on today. So my life has shifted a bit from software engineering to ecommerce and logistics, but it's all part of tech in some way. I still make at least 1 commit per day on Github for example (which is something I set as a goal 2 years ago) and help contribute to open source projects, and have gotten so much more into cybersecurity in recent years. Everything I learned stems from OT/Tibia development. Projects I've done throughout the years and such. I was quite a slow learner and "sleeper" in terms of programming (for about a decade), but in the last 6 or so years is when I truly saw my progress in programming and started building large projects for fun. Programming pretty much every day and trying new things every month.

Now I'm all about ecommerce though, it's the new chapter of my life. It excites me more than software engineering at the moment. To see the warehouse grow and learn all about the industry is what gets me up every morning. To see and touch real things and not just some code in a cloud. Learning all about marketing, sales, entrepreneurship and leadership, talking to customers and suppliers. I had learned a bit of all these things in the last 12 or so years and when I finally put it all together, I realized I belong in ecommerce. It's a bit of marketing, a bit of software engineering, a bit of customer service, a bit of logistics, etc. And it's been going great since I launched 3 ish years ago, couldn't be happier at the moment honestly.

Few years ago I wanted to apply for a job in cyber security (in counter-intelligence @ the government) but it required me to go to police training first, so I skipped that. Glad I skipped it and found my passion elsewhere. But I'll never ever leave this community. Might be gone for a while but I'll always come back. There's no place like home!

Awesome to hear! Can i ask which company you started and where you are from?