I'm Now Neck Deep Into Web Programming

I can now say I'm full-time into web programming. Or is there a more appropriate way to describe spending over 8 hours a day reading and practicing web programming?

image: lockergnome.com

It has not been fun. Some of the books I'm reading give me headache. Reading the life stories of full-time web developers online has assured me that it's a long arduous journey to becoming a good web developer. But I'm willing to go the distance. I have got lots of business ideas that I want to test out online. I want to build an online stock trading firm, where you just sign up like you do on Facebook and trade stocks with much less transaction fees than the brick and mortar brokerage firms. I want to build a local parcel/courier firm that lets you send a parcel to anyone in Nigeria as long as you know their name, email and phone number. No need for a physical address. I want to start (probably the first) real online payment system in Nigeria. Interswitch is trying, but still far from good. And Paga is not user-friendly and open enough. On the crazy side, I want to build a smart home app. An app that alerts you when your gas cooker is on (or just turned off), when someone is fiddling with your entrance doors at night, when your bulbs are still turned on at 8:00am on a non-solar eclipse day, when junior has sneaked into the living room to turn on the TV at 12midnight, when electric stove and electric kettle and electric iron has not been unplugged for the past 4 hours... And when a fire alarm or smoke detector goes off in your house, regardless of where you are. I'll name it Presitisimo or Faucet-Origo.

I also want to build web apps that solve real problems, problems no one is taking a real stab at. And I also want to create web apps that will appeal only to guys like me, who want to live at the bleeding edge of technology. Apps that will do things we only see in movies in this part of the world. And a couple of apps that will look like a product of Hogwarts, pure magic.

And most importantly, I want to become like the guys I've always admired. The guys building amazing opensource software. Guys who are active on Github and building the almost impossible. The next bitcoin. The future of web. And the future of technology.

For once, I can say I'm spending my time on the things I enjoy. And not just preparing myself for the future, but trying to join the guys building that future. I no longer want to be at the consuming end of technology, playing catch-up all my life, wishing some of the cool stuffs the guys in other countries make will someday get here. I've got 21st century ideas. Ones as cool as any other idea in the world. And I'm going to bring them to life.