Hi, my name is Brecht

The job description of a front-end developer is something that changes over time. From writing simple HTML and CSS, we moved on to complex architectures and an extra focus on marketing, UX and accessibility. We re-invent ourselves and I hope by starting this blog that my experiences can benefit others.

It's been over 10 years since I started as a designer / front-end developer. After a while, the front-end part of the job became more significant and design skills were lost. Although I have a good eye for detail, I never was a great designer, so that's ok I guess. It's a fantastic job that continuously evolves and a great place to learn about other programming languages as well, such as Javascript and PHP. There are many frameworks out there such as React, Vue, Symfony, etc. in which you can take an extra "deep-dive".

You can have any framework you desire but design, accessibility and UX will always be important parts in the digital world which is why my main focus will always be on those pillars.

Love and marriage

In 2016, I got married to Renée, who also started out as a front-end developer and now works as an analyst. We're both quite geeky when it comes to our hobbies. A few years later we welcomed the joy of our live: our little daughter Eva, born in January 2019.

In my spare time I like to take walks to photograph landscapes, play some guitar or play a board-game. And that's about it, I'm a pretty normal guy.

The struggles that became a goal

Being a self-taught developer came with a lot of challenges. Learning to code while doing a day time job in a factory required quite the investment but that’s nothing compared to finding the first employer that wants to hire you. Now, many years and quite a few jobs later I’m starting a new dedication to helping others to grow in their programming journey. I started writing on this personal blog but I’m also starting to write for the iO tech hub, Smashing Magazine and CSS-Tricks. In 2023, I also started giving multiple presentations and workshops.

So why this website?

For starters, this will be a place where I can write some of the things I learn that might benefit others or just something I enjoyed doing. I will use this blog mostly to sharpen my writing skills but In the end, I hope to help some people along the way. I will mostly write from a personal standpoint and keep a down-to-earth mentality but I won't be adding advertisements on this website to gain money.

So, this was an introduction of who I am and what I do. I hope you find something interesting here.

Writing beautiful code is a joy and you can keep enjoying it till infinity because there will always be "the next big thing"