Dan Jones, the Web Developer

I was first exposed to computers as a child. My family had a Commodore 64, on which, as a ten-year old child, I would do my homework, play games, and make simple programs. I learned how to program in BASIC. It was then that I began to understand how computers could improve our day-to-day lives.

When we upgraded to a newer computer, we finally got the Internet (via Prodigy) in our home. When I was 14, I got my first email address, and at 15, created my first website on GeoCities (my site was in the Silicon Valley “neighborhood”). My site was essentially a blog before blogs existed.

Initially, I built the site using a WYSIWYG editor (namely, MS FrontPage), but with my programming background, I was interested in what made these pages into the pages I saw in my web browser. It wasn’t long before I was hand-coding the site.

I learned HTML to layout the site, CSS to give it some style, and eventually JavaScript to make it dynamic. During that time, I had my own web design business. I had one client while in high school, but I gained skills necessary to work with others and to take another person’s vision, and make it real.

When I entered college, I gained additional skills necessary to run enterprise websites. I learned PHP, for truly dynamic website. I learned SQL, to interact with databases. I also gained some experience with server administration by setting up and running my website on my own LAMP server. I also gained experience with several platforms and frameworks.

Since that time, I’ve worked in numerous industries, on websites of all shapes and sizes. I continue to learn more and improve my skills.