Hey everyone. My name is Owen, and I’m a chronic tinkerer. 
I learned HTML in the mid 90’s, and I’ve always been a UI enthusiast. During the MySpace era, I learned CSS to customize my profile page. Around 4 years ago, I finally decided to start learning Javascript, which seemed like gibberish at the time. The vocabulary of programming was the biggest hurdle.
Over the past couple of years I became a little more ambitious and decided to learn Elixir and Phoenix. When I started, I still didn’t really have a grasp of many programming fundamentals. Data types were a mystery. After avoiding Elixir for a while and focussing on JS, I recently decided to take another look.
Now, I’m starting to grok many concepts that were previously too dense. Learning Ecto migrations and schemas was the first major eureka moment. As a part time gig, I’m now experimenting with using Phoenix to progressively enhance a PHP-based site. Crazy as it sounds, VueJS actually helped me understand templating engines enough to transition to Phoenix.
It’s an exciting time to be here, and the community has been great at breaking down mental barriers. Now I’m eager to keep learning and contribute where I can.
