I got interested in coding in 2016 when a friend showed me a small Batch script with a Matrix-style effect. It was just a few lines printing random numbers in green, but for some reason that was enough to get me into programming.
Since then, I have tried a lot of different things. I built my own PC, spent a lot of time with Linux, and got more into self-hosting and server administration by running my own services on a Raspberry Pi. It all started on a Raspberry Pi 4B with 4 GB RAM, and later moved to a Raspberry Pi 5 with 16 GB RAM, using a GeeekPi P33 M.2 NVME M-Key PoE+ HAT, powered by a TL-SG108PE switch, with a 2x12 TB WD Plus HDD dock running RAID1 on Btrfs. The current Pi 5 setup is connected through Tailscale with the Mullvad addon. I use it to host services like Jellyfin, GitLab, Pi-hole, qBittorrent, Caddy, Nginx, Open WebUI, Uptime Kuma, Kiwix, JDownloader, OpenGist, and a few other small things. I also have an Oracle Cloud Always Free VPS, but I am not running anything on it right now.
Most of what I learned came from online resources, especially YouTube, and from trying things out myself. I mostly use Python and C. If something gets more complex, needs crates similar to how Python uses libraries for simple imports, or if I want to embed files more easily than in C, I usually go with Rust instead. I am still much more comfortable with C though, and still learning Rust.
A big part of what I do now is crawling and scraping websites with Python. That is probably what I spend the most time on in my personal projects. I like building tools that parse websites, collect metadata, and automate things in a practical and reliable way. I usually start with static crawling, and if that is not enough, I switch to browser automation with Playwright.
In general, I enjoy technical topics and like learning how things work in detail. One thing I especially like is rebuilding things that already exist from scratch just to understand them better. That includes things like sorting algorithms, hash algorithms, HTTP servers, HTTP proxies, punycode, or even stuff like full adder logic, including in Minecraft lol. I like understanding not just what is used, but also why it works and how it works internally. I also have some experience with Cisco Packet Tracer from my exams, even though I do not use it that often.
I also like reverse engineering, not just because it is interesting, but because I enjoy patching things and solving CTFs. I sometimes use Ghidra for that. From time to time, every few years, I also mess around a bit with things like my Digispark BadUSB, bootloaders, payloads, evil twin setups, or writing annoying malware, mostly because I find the technical side of it fun to explore.
I have used a lot of different Linux distros over the years and ended up sticking with Arch Linux as my daily driver. Part of that is probably because SteamOS is Arch-based, but I also just like having bleeding-edge software, up-to-date packages, and access to basically everything through the repositories and the AUR.
Outside of tech, I also try to take care of my mental health, and journaling has become a part of that. I have been doing it almost every day for about a year now. I also enjoy music, especially metal. Some of the bands and artists I like are System of a Down, Megadeth, Shadow of Intent, Meshuggah, Lamb of God, Avenged Sevenfold, Type O Negative, Slipknot, Falling in Reverse, Dream Theater, Evanescence, and Gojira. I also listen to Touhou music, especially Demetori, jazz, J-rock like Yousei Teikoku, and a lot of the kind of metal you find in osu maps.
When it comes to games, I like story-driven games like NieR: Automata, Life is Strange, Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, and Borderlands 2. I also play osu, Minecraft, and horror or co-op games like The Forest and other games that are just fun to play together.
I also play guitar and currently have two guitars: an Ibanez GRX40-BKN and an Ibanez RG421QM-CBB. I usually play through either a Scarlett Solo 4th Gen interface or a Blackstar ID:Core 10 V3, and I use Ableton together with Neural DSP plugins like Gojira and Nolly.
I want to continue this whole tech journey because it is the most useful skill I have when it comes to making money, so I might as well take it seriously. At the same time, I honestly enjoy it a lot. I do not think I want to go too deep into application development beyond what I already do as a hobby, because I do not see myself doing that kind of work my whole life. It feels too stressful to me. I could much more see myself going in the Linux system administration direction.
Thanks for taking the time to read all of this.