$ git init
A story about how my coding journey started and how I got my hands on Python and chose the Django Framework (who as far as am concerned is the god of backend solutions) as my Tech Stack.
It was my second year as a retail sales cashier in one of the biggest stores in Kenol, Murang'a, Kenya. One chilly morning a customer comes up to me(they were actually 2 lads and a lady). I scan up their items as is business of the day but they seem to be buried deep into some conversation they were having and just before they pay up the items I notice they are developers by the uniform t-shirts they were wearing(DEV FEST, NAIROBI KENYA were the words written on the t-shirts); Dev fest is some kind of meetup/hackathon for developers here in Kenya .
I hold a degree in Applied Statistics with IT so I had some units that covered coding only that the better part of it was theory. So I gather up courage and ask about their tech stack, what industry they are in and all that developer talk and I can tell you for free, for a stranger, they opened up a lot and you could tell this was a great team to work and connect with. One of the guys, who seemed more of a team lead asked for my contact and gave me directions to their office space so that we could connect sometime later.
Fast forward, to my off day while still working at the super store I visit their office and, boy , people were born listeners. The team lead asks about my education background just to learn if we were cut from the same cloth. My background is statistics and my tech stack was the r-programming language and that was the deal breaker for me. But he says I can actually learn his tech stack if I really think that building scalable websites is cool!
Well, I've always had a passion for website development since second year when I used to learn HTML5 and CSS but without the a mentor in programming that's just a total waste of time. So he explains to me the whole realm of backend development and how the systems fetches data from servers which I had heard of in school but did not know where they applied in real life. Behold, a man who God has trusted with destinies of men!
Fun fact: I owned a HP laptop whose life was hanging on a thread and I was ready to start the following day despite the shortcoming. And that's how I started learning python with a focus on the Django framework. My first tutor on Python was the 7-hour video by Programming With Mosh on YouTube. So if you want to get started, check the YouTube channel.
This is my genesis!