About Me...
Welcome to my Blog, my first blog. I have wanted to create a real blog now for a while to share difficulties I come across whilst developing in the hope that it helps others overcome these similar problems.
My name is Andy or as I go by on the "t"internet, REA_ANDREW. I am from Wigan Engalnd, and have been coding now for over 4 years. I started out trying to get good with the basics of HTML but the major breakthroughs came when I walked out of my firsy job.
I went to work for the NHS and in this time I was in a position where the work demanded, some IT knowledge but not a great deal. I got bored. Whilst in this state of boredom I was also restricted to the programs I could work with on my workstation. It was because of this that I took a closer look at Excel, and also why I still feel Excel was the root of all my learning. Please do not get me wrong, I did go to University and have a degree, but ask me something about what i learnt there, lol NADA!!!!! I learnt how much ale I could drink that is for sure. It was only after university when I realised a few things:
1) I enjoy programming
2) I need money to live and pay bills
3) Programming can pay for bills and most importantly.......I enjoy it.
OK, so going back to the programming. I quit a job as a web developer for a small firm as I was not happy with a few things. I then took this Job at the NHS. As I said before I got bored so I started to learn VBA in Excel. This gave me a basic understanding of variables, methods, classes, boxing etc... I managed to develop in time quite a few number of interesting and useful functions for use in excel. My first was a function which checked for duplicates in a column.
Following on from this and in keeping with the VB language I moved on to ASP using VB. I was working on the side for a development company making small ASP sites now and then but all the time learning. After a while, a junction appeared where I was asked whether I would like to take on a .NET project. Ofcourse I said yes, but then realised that I had a few options with regards to my langauge of choice. My first instinct was VB.NET, but after thinking and deliberation I chose C# and learnt from the bottom up, and I mean the BOTTOM.
Since then I have read book and book after book an applied all the knowledge I have gained and continue to gain. I now focus on design principals and thoery, in the hope that I continually code smarter and not harder lol .
The blogs which I want to write I feel will have a wide scope. I want to write about topics which I feel I have had trouble in understanding and any real pitfalls I have come across, I will share.
I am a regular contributor to experts exchange (http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Languages/C_Sharp/) . Great site. I am also a new comer to the ASP.NET web forums, so I have now started posting my ideas there to.
Please posy any questions you may have about any topics which I post.
Cheers for now,
Andy
(REA_ANDREW)
