How DenOByte came to be

Even before starting with my career as a software developer, I liked to deal with anything related to computers, programming, and technology. But I didn't knew that at first, so my education didn't start at the computer science faculty, but rather at the faculty of mechanical engineering.

I've started in a quite humble way: Linux, terminal, GIT, and Python. I still remember how I used KWrite editor (I believe that's called, haven't used it in ages and I don't intend to) which back then had barely any "smartness" like Sublime Text or VS Code.

First I was writing Python scripts to for modellign 3D objects with Python package pythonOCC/pythonOCCT. I belive that sparked my passion for programming.

From there I've continued (actually had to, for my studies, and later as employee at the university) to learn C++ (still using KWrite here). Well, let's just say I got a lot of experience how to learn by trial-and-error there, and most importantly, how to read (a ton) of documentation to get something to work as intended.

Going from there, I've had a chance to work on HPC (High Performance Computing) projects. Not a big fuss, basically a Linux machine, but with a ton of resources (CPU, cores, RAM, etc.), a bunch of people having access and waiting for your queued job to finish.

But was a great experience to learn about parallel programming, optimization, and performance tuning (especially when it came to RAM consumption. Damn, C++ can be a challenge here. On HPC I've managed to eat up over 120GB of RAM once. That was fun).

But I wanted to learn more, and with Crypto hype being on back then, I learned to do my own webscraping scripts, data-mining and trading bots, dealt with Web3 directly, trying out a gazillion of strategies, Binance and KuCoin APIs and more.

I got myself even my own RaspberryPi (best one back then for about 120€, 8 GB RAM and more) to keep those bots running at all times.

We'll, let's just say that while I didn't find that "super strategy for getting rich off the crypto", I learned a ton of things and I see it today as a very much worth investment.

To make it shorter, I figured out that my job at the university was severily blocking my growth (both in financial and technical sense) and gushing the life out of me, so I decided to look for a job in the industry. I had no idea how to do that, but I knew I wanted to be a software developer.

After one month of applying (quite fast if you ask me), a few interviews, I got an offer. It was a small-medium company, but it was a start. I was so excited to start my career as a junior software developer, and I was ready to learn everything I could.

I Had to learn a bunch of new things. Beside SQL, C#, JavaScript, Razor, SVN repos, working with IBM tools, various low code platforms ... I had to learn a ton of developers terminology in order to understand what my mentor, technical lead, was saying. I had my notes, writing down as much as a I could, and read it every time before I've went to bed. It definitely paid off.

Moreover, I had to learn how to work in a team, how to write clean code, and how to communicate effectively with my colleagues. It was a steep learning curve, but I enjoyed every moment of it.

Now, going a few years forward.

Today I still work for the same company, on a higher position with much better pay. I don't see myself as a "senior developer", but I believe one could refer to me as a Jack of all trades.

I guess my company figured out I can take up any role necessary, so I'm a developer (full-stack), tecnical lead (lead a few projects), team lead, solution architect, business analyst, co-project manager, and whatever else is needed. I don't give a damn. Whatever I'm given, I get it done. I don't care in what technology. But I like it that way, because it keeps me on my toes and allows me to learn new things every day.

With the AI tools, damn starting to use a new technology got easy. I can just ask ChatGPT to explain it to me, give me some examples, and even write some code for me. It's like having a personal tutor available 24/7. I can learn at my own pace, and I can always ask for help when I need it. At the same time, results are shown much sooner.

However, we need to be careful here. AI tools are called "tools" for a reason. They're capable of doing stupid things, and while being extremely useful for learning and doing simple to medium tasks 1000x faster, one needs to understand what they're doing (!).

Still, it started to feel to me that my steady and well-paying job is not offering me everything I would like to try out. I want to learn more, I want to create more, I want to share more. I want to have a space where I can write about my projects, my ideas, and my insights.

About half a year a go, I've decided I need to set up some kind of a "brand" name, under which my projects would fall. I wanted something that would be catchy, memorable, and would reflect my personality and my interests. After a lot of brainstorming, I came up with the name "DenOByte".

It's a combination of "Den", which is a cozy and comfortable place where I can work on my projects, and "Byte", which is a unit of digital information. I think it perfectly captures the essence of what I want to create: a space where I can share my projects, ideas, and insights with the world.

Oh, and and Google didn't return any matched for it (e.g. for company, etc.), plus the domain was available (I didn't buy it yet at that time), so that was another thing going for me that I've decided to go with that name.

I've started by posting on Gumroad ("Simple Crypto Python Scripts" and "Simple Utility Python Scripts") and with Youtube channel (DenOByte) for showing demos. Of course, nobody really cared about those, but it was a start. I was learning how to create content, how to market it, and how to share it with the world.

Then my best friend came up with some project idea, and after a bit of digging how to do it, it blew my mind as I've figured out how things like web sites, mobile apps, Google Ads and similar are accessible to me. I mean, I always knew that, but I didn't know how to do it. It was like a whole new world opened up to me.

So, as my first public project, I've decided to try to make a mobile app and deploy it to Google Play Store. I've done a bit of research and decided to go with Flutter (it has a growing community, and supposedly Doulingo is done in the same technology) and with a content - Hi-Lo Party Drinking Card Game.

It was harder to get it into Google Play Store than I initially thought, especialls the 14-day testing period with 12 opted in tester, but it went through. The app doesn't have much downloads, but it is a start.

Just lately I've also ported the app to web, and it's available at https://hilo.denobyte.com. I have more features planned, but I'm not in too big hurry to add those. I've decided first to go to the next step, that is: Buy the denobyte.com domain and set up this webpage (learning Next.js on the way). I don't know where this will take me, but I'm excited to find out.

Nobody might read this blog, but I don't care. It will definitely have one reader, and that's me.

I think that after a few years, looking back and reading this blog might be a good food for thought, and a good reminder of how far I've come, what I've learned, and what I've created.

But still, if anybody is reading this, I hope you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it.