Justin ShreveMeet Justin Shreve: self-taught coder, cat daddy to Harris and Skylar, Google Summer of Code grad, and all around awesome guy.
What motivated you to become a developer? What do you like best about coding?
When I was little I used to sit in on the HTML classes that my parents would teach during the summers. I found it fascinating and wanted to learn more. By the next year I was answering questions that their students raised. From there I taught myself PHP and Javascript and eventually began working with WordPress.
Teaching himself PHP, probably.I was so enthralled with how the different pieces worked together. That’s what really made me want to become a developer. To figure out how things were built, and how I could take them apart, rebuild them, and improve them.
The thing I like best about coding is there’s always something to do. Coding doesn’t get boring because there’s always a feature to add or a bug to fix.
Describe the killer app you’d build, if your wildest fantasy came true.
It’s a vague idea but I’d love to do some kind of augmented reality (AR) game. Maybe an app for something like Google’s Project Glass. I’ve always been interested in games and game design. I think AR and AR games could really be brought to a whole new level with the stuff that’s being developed. It’d be amazing to be a part of that and build a “killer app/game.”
If you could share just one piece of hard-won advice with young coders, what would it be?
Don’t be afraid to break stuff. It’s how you learn. Just jump in and start coding. There are plenty of resources available to you and plenty of people willing to help you learn.
Also, seriously consider playing with open source projects. I learned a lot more once I started working with WordPress and moved away from proprietary code bases.
Meet Justin Shreve is the second in our developer interview series. We’d like you to meet Beau Lebens, too.
