DougHughes.net

Hi, I’m Jared and I’m a programming addict.

I started my lifelong addiction to programming at the age of 9 when I wrote a sarcastic text-based math game that threatened to call the police on you if thrice you failed to answer correctly. I never did any peeking or poking, but that doesn’t change the fact that I was hooked. I told myself it was OK because I avoided the hardcore stuff, but I was too young to recognize what was really going on. I had a lifetime of coding ahead of me, with no escape.

Later, in my teens I started experimenting with other environments: dBase4 on CPM and then on to the dreaded HyperCard, FoxPro and even FileMaker Pro on MacOS. I was gradually falling deeper and deeper into the dark realm of the Coder, and gradually I was losing more of myself in this world. When FileMaker ceased to be enough of a rush for me, I debased myself and started playing with PowerBuilder and Visual Basic for Applications. I thought it made me cool. I had no idea that my soul was becoming more and more tainted! Eventually even JavaScript wasn’t enough for me and I needed something more. I allowed myself to be given over to this thing called “Internet” and eventually I realized that HTML was just a doorway to something deeper… something far more attractive and interesting.

I found my way to ColdFusion just after it’s 4th revision came out. Apparently version 3 wasn’t doing enough to keep people hooked… though Allaire Corporation seemed to be a benign software dealer, they still kept their products on constant rotation to keep their users from finding other dealers. Once I’d started “playing” with it I was thoroughly hooked. For the next 10 years or so, and even now, I find myself constantly occupied with creating software. I can’t stop myself.

Alagad is a refuge for me. A place where I can succumb to my addiction in a fairly safe environment. They offer exciting programming opportunities and interesting new approaches to what I’ve begun to look at as a lifelong scientific pursuit. Since I’m addicted, I may as well do something productive with it, and Alagad offers me that opportunity. I also have the opportunity to inspire less experienced individuals in the dream that software can make a difference and help guide them to the positive use of their mutation. So I have come to look to my colleagues at Alagad as friends and allies… especially since, in the Tagalog language of the Philippines, “alagad” actually means “ally”.

I look forward to getting more and more involved in the business of Alagad and in the process of improving my skills!