Matthew Magain
This is me. I work on the Web.
My role at SitePoint is Technical Editor (Web Technologies). We're based in Melbourne but we publish books about web design and web development for people all over the world. And yes, it is a pretty cool job.
Many people declare that it's the social interactions that make the Web really special, but that's not really the case for me.
Don't get me wrong - I dig twitter and facebook and the fact that the Web is making the world a much smaller place. But I enjoy them in the same way that I enjoy KFC and Australian Idol: they're immediately satisfying, but afterwards I always wonder whether it really was time well spent, and I vow to never indulge again, or at least only in moderation.
My reasons for loving the Web are far more selfish.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a cartoonist. Fuelled by my creative cousin, I would spend hours on end inventing dumb characters (entire comic strips, sometimes) and sketching caricatures of famous people. I was pretty handy in art class, churning out some abstract masterpieces that to this day still hang, proudly framed, in my parents' hallway.
Then my Dad bought me an Apple IIe, and I became immersed in the world of computers. Apple BASIC, Fortran, Matlab, Pascal, COBOL, C, Powerbuilder, C++, Delphi, Forte, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, SQL, Ruby, even Assembly - I've programmed in them all at one point. I carved out a corporate IT career, and was pretty damn good at that too. But after several years of ignoring the artist within, I began to feel hollow.
I ran away to Japan to teach English and do some soul searching, and it was there that I had the revelation that the Web was the perfect medium for me. Here was a medium in which one can be both technical and creative. Here was a medium where I could carve out a product's form, and build its function. The challenge of building something that is both beautiful on the surface and equally elegant under the hood is inordinately alluring. Once upon a time I would lament at being a jack of all trades and a master of none. Today I thrive on it.
It might not pay as well as those corporate IT gigs, but since working on the Web full time, there hasn't been a day when I've woken up and not been excited about going to work.
Here are some things you might not know about me:
* I hitch-hiked around Switzerland when I was 20. I had reasonable success until one night it started getting dark and cars just kept on speeding past while I stood at the side of the road, looking stupid. I gave up and only just caught the last train to Zurich, narrowly avoiding having to spend a night sleeping on the side of the road.
* I only learned to swim when I was 22. Now I clock up a couple of kms, twice a week.
* I once played bass guitar in a band called Hunting Tom. We wrote original rock and roll tracks and had a lot of fun, but only ever played one live gig - to a primary school in their school hall.
* My first canary was called Boris. This was also my high school nickname, as one of my buddies thought I looked like Boris Becker. I don't.
* I take great delight in the fact that my daughter's first word was "Dad". My wife does not.