Whether you are new to the tech community on twitter or a long standing member we’re sure you’ll know of Dan Englishby. We got the opportunity to talk with Dan and discuss his inspirational platform CodeWall, working within the new normal and life on social media.
Hi Dan, we all know you as the Founder of CodeWall, a blog for code
lovers at all stages of their journey, but please introduce yourself and
give us a brief overview of how you got into tech?
No problem, My name is Dan Englishby, I’ve now been a developer for the the last 8 years, I never planned to get into tech from school or college, it just kind of happened. This was probably the best thing to happen to me in terms of career, as I fell in love with it from the first few weeks. I’ve never looked back since.
CodeWall was started in 2018 and has grown to include programming
articles, tutorials discussions and more with a vast range of technologies
and writers included. What inspired you to start the site?
I’ve learnt A LOT from the internet, being self-taught and all, there are so many tutorials out there that have helped me on my journey, so I thought it would be good to give something back!
As CodeWall has become established and gained a reputation across
social media and within the tech community, have your aims and focus
for the site evolved?
Not really, I am still continuing to do the same stuff I have from day one. Maybe there will be bigger things in the future for the website or potential opportunities from social media. But for now, I’m just plodding along.
The articles on CodeWall cover a range of topics and are sometimes
written by other tech enthusiasts. Do you think it’s important to build a
collaborative and inclusive platform?
Definitely, allowing other writers onto the platform helps spread their content, their craft and show the many readers that there is plenty more epic content around.
We are all now living and working in un-precedented and challenging
times, has the current situation changed your working pattern, such as
working from home? And have you found any helpful hacks to keep
positive and productive?
This situation is un-precedented yes, it’s something we as a generation can all look back on and appreciate the life we have. I am personally working from home due to the circumstances. It’s bitter-sweet really, working from home keeps us safe, but takes us out of the real world. I have a bad back from sat on my couch with my laptop every day but that’s probably the only negative. To keep positive, I’m lucky enough to be a coder, which allows you to escape reality, especially when fully concentrated into a project. I would advise people to keep talking, stay in touch with people and try to think of the positives.
You have a huge presence across social media, with 17.5 thousand
followers! Do you feel a responsibility to maintain a positive attitude
across your account?
Indeed, I’m a strong believer in positive energy and have been from the start. I try to spread that energy by ‘attempting’ to share some lighthearted developer humour because who doesn’t want to laugh? And secondly, trying to share content across the Twitter platform is something I try to do regularly to show all the developers out there that there is soooo much content to consume. Twitter has been one of the best things I’ve done in the last 10 years!
We’ve seen that you are a real advocate for the #100DaysOfCode
challenge to get people coding regularly. What do you think are the
benefits of the challenge and have you ever completed it yourself?
I haven’t completed it myself, but If I’d of known about it when I first started out, I would of certainly jumped on board. I think it proves the special nature of development, You don’t need to be super clever, you can be any age etc to learn to become a developer. Which I absolutely love, it gives people who want to start development a great step on the ladder. Even when you see people who have been in a certain profession for 20 years, and they jump to development with the 100DaysOfCode challenge then get a job in the industry, it’s absolutely brilliant.
Your Twitter bio outlines your love for full stack development and
JavaScript Visualisation. What is it about full stack development that
interests you and do you see it being the way for software to move
forward?
What can I say about full stack apart from I love it? Being able to see ideas on paper all the way through to the the final product not only gives me a sense of achievement, but the learning scope from using the full stack is incredible. Do I see it being the way forward, that would be hard to give an opinion on, the way technology moves, I have no idea. But one thing is for sure, I’ll continue doing it for as long as possible.
Are there any other members of the community, or in other industries
that inspire you?
Of course, so many to mention, one for source is Mr Marc Backes, who consistently shows how driven developers are and how to be cool at the same time. Top guy!
Thank you to Dan for having such an honest and inspiring conversation with us! We highly recommend that you follow Dan on his social media accounts. You can find him on Twitter!
