Welcome to My World of Web Development and More!

Hey there! I’m Alex, and I’m thrilled to have you here on my website.

Let’s kick back, grab a cup of coffee (or your beverage of choice), and embark on a journey through my web development adventures, sound engineering detours, and a sprinkle of digital marketing expertise.

It’s going to be a fun ride!

A Blast from the Past

You know, I’ve come a long way since my humble beginnings in the world of computing.

Picture this: my first computer, the Schneider (Amstrad) CPC6128, didn’t even have a hard drive. Yep, I had to read disks or code my way through simple games.

This got me learning some BASIC and Pascal… I don’t remember anything about those now, but hey, that’s where the magic began!

Fast forward to the ’90s, when I got my hands on a 386, then a 486 computer with that quirky turbo button – going from 8 to 40 MHz is a pleasure no kid from the 2000s can experience.

And let’s not forget my first Pentium, the Cyrix 6×86-P166. Ah, the thrill of the upgrade… It felt like I had a rocket ship at my fingertips.

Web Development Takes Center Stage

Around 1995, the web came knocking on my door, and I answered with open arms.

Dreamweaver became my trusted companion, but boy, the HTML it produced was horrendous.

I also dove headfirst into the world of web development with vanilla PHP. I even tried some Macromedia Flash but I didn’t quite grasp it at the time (and yes, it was Macromedia Flash before being acquired by Adobe).

Fun fact: In 1999, when I had to choose my field of study, I wavered between Sound Engineering and Computer Science.

Can you guess which one I picked? Yep, I opted for Sound Engineering. Looking back, I can’t help but chuckle because, well, Computer Science should have been my true calling. Haha!

Navigating the Development Waters

Now, let me fast-forward to a pivotal moment in my journey.

In 2011, after feeling a bit disenchanted with my sound engineering career, I made the bold leap into the realm of PHP web development. Landing a job at the biggest digital agency in Belgium without any diploma, formal training or relevant experience wasn’t a walk in the park, let me tell you.

What sealed the deal for me? CodeIgniter, a PHP framework!

The recruiter told me they were using it for a client’s project, so I learned the CodeIgniter basics and built a small CRUD app to show the recruiter I was able and eager to join the company… that turned out to be my golden ticket.

Little did I know that OOP, SOLID, and TDD were ready to kick my ass HARD.

It took me a good six months to truly “get it” and be autonomous. Being a senior developper was still a dream at this point, but since more and more projects managers came to me to bug old legacy projects (something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy), I bet I was not doing too badly!

And the hard work paid off – I found myself working in the mobile team, as the sole web / PHP developer, coding web services written with Silex (Symphony’s late little brother), powering the mobile apps we built for our clients.

Embracing Change and New Horizons

In 2016, I took a detour into the world of digital marketing and SEO.

It was an exciting shift that allowed me to put my limited but handy development knowledge to work. I became the bridge between clients and developers, and even wrote some nifty code scripts to simplify my day-to-day tasks. Ah, the joy of finding creative solutions – AKA spending 8 hours to automate a 3-min task.

I know you know.

But my thirst for knowledge didn’t stop there. Python had always piqued my interest, and in 2022, I finally took the plunge.

I dedicated myself to earning my IBM Data Science and IBM AI Engineering Professional Certificates, and to do so so, I had to learn Python. That one of the best decisions I’ve made in my development journey!

Sharing the Good Stuff

And that brings us to this website – my humble corner of the internet.

Here, I’ll be sharing all the stuff I use daily, with the hope of helping out a fellow newbie developer along the way. From web development tips and tricks to snippets of code that have saved my sanity, you’ll find it all here.

So, my friend, make yourself at home.

Explore the content, dive into the tutorials, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions or just want to connect!