About me

Who am I?

Hey, my name is Joni. I'm a male, 32 years old. Currently I'm unemployed and trying to find work. In the meantime I'm practicing my coding skills and planning on starting my own business one day.

I graduated from University of Jyväskylä in 2019, with three master's degrees in my pocket, and a couple of years later I ended up in Ilomantsi where I was working as a sports secretary in the municipality of Ilomantsi. I guess I'm lucky for having been able to work in a job that fits my education, but now I'm unemployed asf, and living with my parents.

Working as a sports secretary wasn't too bad - I got to make a difference in local community and arrange sporting events and organize youth and sports activities according to my best judgment. At times secretarial work can get a bit tedious, stressful and lonely, but I counterbalance that by continuously working on my skills and improving my knowledge and staying active on my current field of expertise. I could see myself working in a whole different field in the future, though.

I'm a nerd who's into all sorts of things. I like to read books, play computer and console games, lift weights, build computers and learn to code. I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my life, but right now I'm focused and dedicate several hours to coding each day. Coding is honestly really hard, but I like the feeling of how I can get absorbed in it. I would gladly get rid of all the moments when I run into issues and can't find any explanation for errors (nothing on console, nothing on Stack Overflow, ChatGPT is clueless etc.) I would never study coding in a school or university - for me coding is a way to test and push my limits and get into new interesting things without a fear of failure.

Coding reminds me of the times when I was still in university, but I find it more enjoyable than studying in school. I never enjoyed the rigid structures and customs of university so compared to that coding feels like I can do whatever I want, and the only opponent that I have is my weak skills. I could see myself working in software industry in the future, but who knows? I'm taking baby steps each day, comparing myself to who I was yesterday and aiming to be a better version of myself each day.

I didn't always think this way. When I was younger, I felt like I knew who I was and what kind of person I was. When I was in high school I was sure I wasn't interested in philosophy. Now I have a master's degree in philosophy. Then later when I was in university I thought I would never ever work in municipal administration and had no interest in it. At some point my perspective turned 180 degrees and I realized that sports administration is actually more solid than anything else in sports sciences.

What I want to say is that life isn't always linear. Most of us have to spend the majority of our time doing mundane tasks, such as eating, sleeping, working and socializing with friends and family. Mundane tasks keep us in place and not much changes. Then, if you want change your life, for one reason or another, you might decide to improve and work on things that you find valuable and meaningful. You dedicate your willpower and a lot of your time into it. Most of that time is also wasted, because it is not directly advancing your goals no matter how hard you work. (Also if you're learning to code, you probably waste too much of your time on problemsolving and pointless tutorials.) No matter how hard you focus on streamlining your actions, the most probable outcome is a change in yourself, but not the kind you were hoping or expecting. So you have to enjoy the process and doing the things you would do even if you knew that you might never get any other reward but the joy of learning and developing as a person.

Taking action is the only way to change, though, and it's a slim chance that we would always succeed and get what we want, but focusing on the journey is usually enough to make our lives a bit better and feel like the things we do are meaningful and moving forward. Put a couple of hours into something you want to achieve each day and let the process take care of the rest.

Um, what else? Well, I'm an introverted, calm and focused person. I have one degree from philosophy so occasionally I sound like a philosopher and can be argumentative. I like philosophy but I don't like those who call themselves philosophers, those who teach philosophy in universities, have no experience of empirical study, lack any connection to real life and comment every insignificant phenomenon or piece of news like a goddamn prophet. In that sense I quite frankly despise how low contemporary philosophy has gotten, but I still think it's one of the greatest things to get to know and learn if you want to expand your knowledge and understanding of different ideas.

One person that I knew years ago told me that I'm an observer - I tend to watch and react only after I've thought things through. Admittedly she was right. I'm an introvert after all but I've always seen it as a positive. I can be socially adept under right circumstances. I have my patience with stupidity, but I'm not going to tag along for long when I get bored or when people test me with their drama and stupid remarks.

In life I try to be courageous, optimistic, try new things and venture in new projects in order to counterbalance my natural introvertedness.

Coding stack

For front-end development I am using HTML, CSS, Javascript and TypeScript, and for back-end development I am using mainly PHP and Node.js. I had to learn the basics the basics of both frontend and backend in order to be able to create simple websites. I think PHP is still one of the best languages for backend development, because it's very easy to use. Also you kinda need it if you want to work with Wordpress and other CMS. If I had to choose the two most useful languages for setting up websites fast, then I'd say PHP and Javascript are my first recommendations.

In addition I am also familiar with these common technologies, frameworks etc.:

JavaScript is the only programming language that I'm truly comfortable with. Why? I have most practice with it, and it's so versatile and easy to use. I've been making games with it and the best thing about it is that I can easily use public APIs and libraries, but I can also opt to write everything from scratch and not rely on them. It's relatively easy to write a full-fledged game in JavaScript. I also tried Python for game development but didn't like it as much because it's not as easy to use, code gets messy fast, new features are harder to implement, libraries have their own restrictions (compared to relative freedom of JavaScript) and finally: debugging can be a nightmare quite often when the debugger can't tell you what's actually wrong with your code. I rather go through a list of compiler errors that watch Python errors that do not give me even a hint of what's wrong in the code.

Here's my take on AI and using AI tools: AI is a useful tool. I'm willing to take whatever help I can get. Not in learning but in becoming a better developer. Coding itself is a means to an end. If AI can help me get better, then why not use it? Whenever I get stuck for days, I ask AI. If there's something I can't figure out, I ask AI. If I want a second opinion or new project ideas, I ask AI.

I realize that coding is an activity where syntax needs to be learned thoroughly, and I respect those who fight against cheap tricks of using AI tools instead of learning things, but I have to say that I would not be here today without AI. AI pushes me forward, and I know that I have to be better than it if I want to develop as a developer. I strive to be better than AI. I know that I'm the loser if I can't control my use of it. But when I control it, I can push myself to learn things that I would not be able to learn otherwise. Instead of fearing AI, we should embrace all the possibilities that it's granting us. AI is only a tool, so it can't solve my problems for me and it certainly can't finish my projects.

Senior developers like to roast juniors for relying too much on AI, but think about it. If you're a good developer, you already know that you're good and in your eyes juniors can't be anything but bad. Most juniors know that they are still juniors and still learning. If they aren't willing to learn without AI and strive for that deep understanding, then they're not going to get good and that's it. Developers can be quite good at what they do without deep understanding, just as AI is good at what it does. Deep understanding doesn't pay my bills but it certainly increases my satisfaction and happiness as a developer.

What is the best way to improve skills as a developer? It is to take on hard projects and finish them every time. Exponential growth comes from moments when you're confused and hardly even know what you're doing. I thought Wordpress was difficult and I was really confused when I started learning it, but quickly realized that all the experience I've gathered through trial and failure has paid off and doing custom styles and layouts in Wordpress was actually quite easy after the initial confusion phase. My coding projects always have a practical aspect in them. For example, I know I should be doing beautiful websites but I find myself doing websites that work and have interesting functionalities. I do only projects that have utility. I like building games because they teach a lot about programming in general, but I push myself to work on projects that have more real-life value. My interests are not purely on the frontend or backend but somewhere in between.

Here's a revelation. I actually dropped coding in 2024 for a couple of months (I started coding in late 2023) when I was still new to web development. But what was the reason? I was following a few tutorials back then ('100 days of Python' and 'The Complete Web Development Bootcamp' from Angela Yu) and was feeling really bored. I was learning, but course projects felt really boring and I didn't have enough motivation so my interest waned. I recognized what was wrong only later when I started coding again.

What brought me back to coding was the fact that my brother needed a simple website and he kept pushing me to do it. I did the website and thought it wasn't too bad and it was actually fun when I had to figure things out by myself and could make a real difference. I still love tutorials that teach me new things quick, but I've come to realize that I don't learn shit unless I make challenging and meaningful projects after each tutorial. I also change course material as much as possible and tinker with code. I like getting the basics with a tutorial and then jumping straight to action. Sometimes I go straight to action, which was the case with learning Python. If you know one programming language thoroughly, then it's easier to learn another and at that point you're better off not following tutorials that are too easy for you.

I still have so much to learn and I'm waking up each day knowing that it's fun to learn new things and it's not too bad if I fail. I have time and only with time I can get to know what and how I want to code. Right now I want to learn C++ and C# for game development, but I think I will never be a game developer apart from making games for fun. I want to learn Next.js and Laravel for web development, Flutter for mobile development, and TypeScript and Python. I know I can write a quality backend in PHP or in JavaScript using Node.js, but I'm also interested in learning what I could do by integrating Python or C#.


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