A diverse group of individuals tell us how they began their career in programming. Read them here.
Oladeji Oluwafemi shares his story.
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Oladeji Oluwafemi Olatunde
It all started while I was in junior secondary school (I think JSS2). I had a brilliant computer teacher who introduced me to BASIC programming language. I found it quite interesting that I could actually tell the computer to do certain things and it would, so I started digging through all the computer textbooks I had at home just to have a firm grip on what programming was all about. It was quite painful that I could not test all my knowledge with a real computer. I passed up an opportunity to go for summer lesson during a long vacation just to learn the basics of typing and how to use a computer and it really helped (even though I was almost blaming myself after resumption because it took a while to catch up with my classmates).
Higher institution beckoned and it was quite easy making the choice of what course to study. I almost got pressured into studying something else but somehow computer science wriggled its way back into my life. I got a laptop after my first year and since then I’ve never taken my feet off the pedal. I installed everything I needed and when it was time to take JAVA and C in my second year I made it a point to practice every single example, assignments and make further researches. I had a lot of scary e-books on my system with some funny titles but that didn’t stop me from reading them (not the whole 1000+ pages though).
JAVA became my first major language because of its OOP concepts and inbuilt functions that were just perfect. I used my first IT to learn the basics of JAVA GUI and it was quite tedious then because I basically had to write everything with Notepad++ but there was always a large grin on my face whenever I write the “javac” command and my program gets compiled without any error. After a while I got exposed to VB6 and it was quite easy. I discovered that I don’t really need to write everything, I could design how I wanted my program to look and then code how I want it work. I did that for a while but my love for JAVA was still there. Until I got introduced to web programming during my second IT and I was like “wow, this so cool”. I learnt how to design a web template with Photoshop, converting the PSD to html with CSS and html tags and finally php. I went so deep into it and it started competing with my academics but I needed to find a balance even if it meant sacrificing some coding time.
I developed a CBT exam for some fresh students in the school just to make them conversant with how it works.
My NYSC year was another interesting one as I had the opportunity to work with a team in University of Jos where we developed a web application for handling of Post Graduate and Diploma applications into the university.
My life as a programmer is a very interesting one. My parents have accepted my preference to spend time on my system to spending time with them (except when necessary). The most annoying thing about programming is encountering a bug (especially the seemingly inexplicable ones) and the most fulfilling thing is fixing a bug.
I know I still have a long way to go and that is why I’ve glued my feet to the throttle until I hopefully get there one day.
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Oladeji Oluwafemi (@femidotexe) currently works with a group of geniuses at ITvessel, a software company in Nigeria that is into website, web and mobile applications development. His current major project is EdvesTertiary (a one-stop shop portal for tertiary institutions).
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