What sparked your interest in web development?

[multimediocrity]

I am curious what interested people in web development. What's your story?

Here's mine. I actually hated using the Internet until I got to college (siz years ago) and had a fast connection. I was forced to take a web design and development class, which I accepted reluctantly. My friends could all make websites, but I had no clue what I was doing. However, after the first week of class, I took an interest because I discovered I could make pages far better than the pages I've seen before. I also appreciated the finesse and difficulty of the subject.

[Stephen Philbin]

I started out by writing news and reviews on a website and I needed to learn how to put links and images into the content I wrote. Once I'd learned how to do that, I thought that there wasn't much sense in just stopping there. So I continued learning about HTML and naturally progressed from there.

[Kuriyama]

Used to be a GUI developer a long time ago. Noticed that GUI development is primary OS or game development, saw most GUI developers becoming web developers. It was a natural progression.

[multimediocrity]

Neat! Usability and GUI development is my focus now.

[Stephen Philbin]

Heh. I've actually gone the other way. I started with web and now do mostly GUI stuff in Java. Haven't done any serious PHP-ing in over a year now. I started out writing a small program in Java, but it soon got much bigger once I decided to give it a GUI with numerous components with very specific requirements (that Java seems to not want to do). I fully intend to get back to PHP as my main thing, but for now I'm just loving (and often hating) Java.

[Kuriyama]

Originally Posted by Stephen Philbin

Heh. I've actually gone the other way. I started with web and now do mostly GUI stuff in Java. Haven't done any serious PHP-ing in over a year now. I started out writing a small program in Java, but it soon got much bigger once I decided to give it a GUI with numerous components with very specific requirements (that Java seems to not want to do). I fully intend to get back to PHP as my main thing, but for now I'm just loving (and often hating) Java.

Yeah GUI stuff in Java can be rather hellish, especially if you are trying to do something very custom with layouts. Are you doing anything with JavaFX?

[aj_nsc]

How'd I get started? Can't quite remember exactly, but I think it had something to do with a 14.4kbs modem, grade 6, the <center> tag, and an animated gif of a smoking skull...

[Stephen Philbin]

Originally Posted by Kuriyama

Are you doing anything with JavaFX?

No. I rather dislike this "RIA" crap that everyone seems so keen to swallow. I first heard about JavaFX in a mail from the SDN (Sun Developer Network). The first few lines of fanfare sounded interesting enough, but then as soon as I hit some crap like "empowering developers with the agility and [insert various other bits of clichéd crap here] to develop Rich Internet Applications [add more clichéd crap here]..." and then I just deleted the mail and never investigated any further.

A week or two ago I clicked a few links in Netbeans to have a peek at some Java-related blogs and most of them turned out to be lots of people complaining about how crap JavaFX is. Thus reinforcing my disinterest. Swing alone is plenty enough to keep me busy. I don't want to divert my attention to something else that seems quite pointless to me and crap to so many others.

[Sabz]

with me it all started in high school armed with a 28k modem and the will to share and contribute to this ingenious invention.. also referred to as the www.
i went about creating a website indexing music for Audiogalaxy (a web based music sharing client) kinda like ed3k links for emule now.. haha it had a nice run then the ofcourse predictably the IRAA came knocking down. went on to "develop" another 4 basic html sites for various groups; more as a hobby then anything else. wrap content in a <center> tag, some color and images.. that was it really.
since then i havent touched a peace of code as my attention was diverted else where cuz i had to get my Bachlor in MIS.
after graduation i ditched an Oracle support job so i can pursue a freelance career with a buddy of mine whos also quit a job with IBM as a programmer to pursue Webdevelopemnt only this time on a more professional level... its a totally different ball game now and i'm still coming to grips with current tech and programming languages. still focused more on the client side stuff but eventually its PHP madness soon
So why do i,we do it?
well this forum is as good as an example as any; how can you not contribute back to the web when it has done plenty for you.

[scragar]

Started, like for most of you, in high school, I hadn't really used a computer before then, anyway, during IT class we had one assignment using front page(Oh how I loathe my teachers for that in retrospect) to develop a simple website. After writing this I wondered how javascript worked, it looked rather magical to me then, so I posted a question here asking about if because for some reason it wasn't working for me, repeatedly(turns out I was a lot stupider back then than I assumed ), after some people were very nice to me here I figured I would pay back the kindness that was shown to me, I studied and learn as much as I could for around a year, then returned here to help people like I'd been helped.

It started as a curiosity, then a hobby, during college it became freelance work, and after college it became a full time job.

[Mr Initial Man]

Taking over a Redwall roleplaying club, that is what. :-)

[Kuriyama]

Originally Posted by Stephen Philbin

No. I rather dislike this "RIA" crap that everyone seems so keen to swallow. I first heard about JavaFX in a mail from the SDN (Sun Developer Network). The first few lines of fanfare sounded interesting enough, but then as soon as I hit some crap like "empowering developers with the agility and [insert various other bits of clichéd crap here] to develop Rich Internet Applications [add more clichéd crap here]..." and then I just deleted the mail and never investigated any further.

A week or two ago I clicked a few links in Netbeans to have a peek at some Java-related blogs and most of them turned out to be lots of people complaining about how crap JavaFX is. Thus reinforcing my disinterest. Swing alone is plenty enough to keep me busy. I don't want to divert my attention to something else that seems quite pointless to me and crap to so many others.

I have heard this about JavaFX from a lot of people. Java need to learn it's place and not try to become a robust GUI language IMO. Their drawing model is completely wrong, and why develop GUI if .NET with easy

[Stephen Philbin]

I chose to get into Java over any other language because it's the best choice for cross-platform availibility. So .Net is useless to me. Doubly so, given that my PC is a Linux machine. I wanted to make things on a computer I feel comfortable with, but let people run the things I make on machines they feel comfortable with.

[Freejack]

Hmm, I'm an old skool gamer from way way back. I got into computers when I was making character sheets on a typesetting machine at work. I bought a sinclair in 1979 and wrote a quick menu to monitor characters in my D&D games. I used that script and my continuing love of gaming to create other generation tools for Car Wars, Paranoia and Shadowrun.

From there I created BBS "Doors", little programs that plugged into Bulletin Boards then got involved briefly with Nethack (name's still in the credits after all these years too). I even wrote a newsreader (dos based).

I turned into a part time programmer then a full timer. Then into installing and managing networks. From there I became a network admin then a Unix admin (programming still).

I'm still gaming and decided that a web based gaming tool would work on any platform so I'm working on my next generation Shadowrun tool. php, mysql, and javascript.

Carl

[JPnyc]

a bunch of religiously insane people attacked my city, my former profession dried-up, and this seemed like something I could do and would enjoy. Pretty boring, eh?