Way back around 1992-1993 life changed and with it came a change of careers as I moved into middle management with a small systems integrator, for about 6-7 years total, although not consecutive. In the early years I remember some of the old time verterans getting excited about the ability to open multiple small graphics windows on their screen, generated from other locations. This all meant little to me, but was a part of the beginning of the Internet and the world wide web.
Jump ahead to arund 1998 - 1999 and at the same company I was tasked with learning how to create a “website” using Netscape Navigator. Even with my lack of knowledge the very plan, ugly, static pages did not amount to much, but here was the beginning. As I taught myself more and more about how to bulld these pages, I “convinced” the boss to get a copy of some highly promoted app called Dreamweaver. Honestly, I knew very little about it, but based upon all of the literature, this was the place to be if one were to “do the web.”
This was the beginning. Using Dreamweaver I learned a little about Classic ASP, back when it wasnt classic but the only method of drawing from databases if one used Microsoft, and we were a Microsoft company in most ways. If memory serves, this involved making use of Macromedia’s Dreamweaver UltraDev.
Understand, I never was nor am a designer / developer or programmer. In fact the position I am now fulfilling started out as a slot to teacher Word, powerpoint and so forth to elementary school children, growing into being the only on-staff IT guy in charge of anything that looks technical.
Fast forward – health and other issues get in the way and I find myself developing a personal Christian ministry page, learning PHP in the process. I was still using Dreamweaver and as others have mentioned relied heavily upon Interakt extensions. The natural progression from there was to add other extenions, including I discovered more and more from DMX Zone. In fact, like many it became easier to move to the subscription service than to purcahse individaul extenions.
As more time passes, I have developed several business sites as well as church sites, none extra large, but all challenging and mostly database driven. During this time i never moved away from Dreamweaver and the DMX Zone extensions. I always found the support fantastic at DMX, and the extenions accomplished all of the concepts needed for the sites, along with suggestion new and different development ideas.
Life gets in the way again. As I said above, I was never a full time designer or developer, although I have done my best to stay atune to the updates and changes. I still maintain a half-dozen sites, but honestly a couple are way out of date and it is time to either improve them or give them up. About the time I was getting ready to dig in and make changes, along comes the beta promotions for Wappler. It is a natural fit so I jumped onboard the band wagon right from the start, back at beta 1 and while I have not contributed a lot, I have stuck with the process and read virtually every post.
At the same time, I am, like many of you, walking through the tutorials, even when those meant mentally revising Dreamweaver documentioin to figure out how to do Wappler. The docmention has gotten better and better, making it amazingly easy to learn Wappler. One of these days I will move to the real sites, but that is part of the process.
So, yes, I am like many of you out there – the non-professional, whether you call yourself a hobbiest, a designer, a developer, or just a “web guy.” This has been a fun journey, one full of learning, and the occassional “ah ha” moments. Joining a community like this, follwoing the progress, complaioning at the bugs, laughing at the things obvious but still not understood, enjoying the acomplishment of the completed page, all add to the joy fo being a Wappler enthusiastic and ambassador. The guyss at DMX even created a pricing level for us “hobby” guys. So, if you are a web guy, at almost any level, this is the place to be.
Jim Arthur – @jimatjude