A sad story about my life

I love programming more than anything else in life! I've never done it as a full-time job, but I still consider myself a skilled senior programmer. I like to program libraries, MCU's, desktop applications, web-sites and more (anything really).

My journey started with Game Maker where I used "drag & drop" to create games. But when I one day figured that I could write code to do the same things (in a C++ like syntax) I was hooked on coding from there on! Eventually I wanted something more professional and I tried things like Allegro (C++), Liberty BASIC and finally landed on PureBasic which I used for some years.

Suddenly I found myself earning money from my parents' basement with my freeware application called "JLC's Internet TV" which was an international success at the time. I even made a website using PHP and MySQL to host the database used by the program.

At this point I visualized a bright future for myself as a software programmer and I had started lots of other promising projects (at least in my head). I even taught myself hacking and had lots of fun exploring (the lack of security of) internet connected stuff... I kinda gave up on getting a proper education and was instead sitting at home doing these things (having severe social anxiety and depression was also a factor).

I did get some job offers and I was about to start working for a local company (doing PureBasic) when I realized that my recently(ish) developed neck pain would make it impossible. This kinda marked the start of health problems getting in the way of me realizing my full potential as a professional programmer. Just imagine how terrible it was for me to finally when I started to see a bright future for myself have it totally torn down by severe muscle (and tendon) pains. Which over the years affected most of my body...

Basically at age 20 I was too sick to be able to work with what I loved doing (and which had the potential to make me a very wealthy person). Instead I ended up taking down my websites and discontinuing my projects, in addition to partaking in group-therapy because of my suicidal thoughts and social anxiety.

Eventually I got rid of my mental problems and got a job in a computer store. At least my computer related skills could be used for repairing and selling computers. I was still sick physically though and couldn't even work there full time. I've still never in my 34 year old life had a full time job or a full wage (basically I've been poor my entire life).

I got a girlfriend though and life was looking better, but suddenly the company had to get rid of people and sadly they couldn't offer me a job anymore. So now I am without a job, again... I still got my girlfriend though (for now) and even created a mini-me together with her (a baby girl born June 11 2020).

But now I am wondering how to afford a roof over our head... Hence I figured that maybe the "GitHub Sponsors" program could help me. It basically means that YOU get a chance to help me continue doing what I love! Hopefully without me having to sell our home.

Fast forward

Fast forward to today I still have physical health problems getting in my way. But I know how to manage them better now and I do periodically get things done, as in some days of programming and some days of pain. But I enjoy it too much to just quit totally... And I do actually believe in gradually improving my health and I am starting to see some progress! :-)

Again I have lots of projects I'm working on (because I am fascinated by too many things and technologies) and I'm not good at actually finishing any of them... But I've decided to try focusing more on finishing my projects and then releasing them as open source code here on GitHub!

I do actually believe that I could have some success with what I'm doing and also that I can create things that other people will find very useful (especially the open source community). But since I don't believe in selling software for money (being an open source user and advocate myself) donations from sponsors is what I have to rely on. And I will be forever grateful for any kind of donation I can get!

Current work

Currently I am working on lots of JavaScript libraries, tools and programs (maybe even some games). The first things to be released are going to be the libraries and tools I've created for the JavaScript community.

I'm just one person though, hence my git skills are not very developed yet. So excuse me if my git skills are a bit rusty. And please do expect there to be personal comments and whatnot in my code; I've never worked in a team before and these are MY PERSONAL projects that I am sharing. Don't expect high quality "standard conforming" stuff. The overall quality of my repositories will gradually improve of course, but for now I will mostly be busy with just getting my stuff uploaded to GitHub (and then perfect it later).

https://joakimch.github.io