I’m Rafael. I like words. A lot. Mostly in the context of writing code, but also outside of it, when writing…anything. It occurs to me that one can paint with words. You could compose a piece of art, entirely with — maybe digital — black ink on white paper. As a result, then, I think of me writing code as painting. I’m a painter, and my paint is words, pieces of syntax, keywords and variable names.

I’m very fond of this painting thing. I love doing it, and it produces a neat end product: a beautiful painting, in the form of a web app. With this web app I, with or without a team, will try to solve a problem. Most of the time, we succeed, sometimes, we don’t. Either way though, I love painting it, and I love (trying to) solve complex problems with simple software.

What I failed to mention are my paintbrushes. I do not paint with regular brushes and pencils. No, I use more technical, digital tools. In case you’re a fellow painter — or pretend to be one — you will perhaps recognise them. I use the following: ReactJS, JavaScript, HTML5, CSS3, Firebase, Scala, Rust, Elixir.

Some brushes are unfamiliar; I don’t use them a lot. But when I do, I very much enjoy it. I marvel at the possibilities of all these strange new brushes, and love getting more familiar with them. From time to time, I will even acquire some new brushes, at a wonderful place called the Internet and the Open Source software community. With these new brushes, I might make myself a better painter: after all, they create tons of new painting possibilities.

On some increasingly less rare occasions, I even invent a new brush, which I will then proceed to share with my dearly beloved Open Source community. Maybe I’ll eventually become a master at creating new brushes, but for now, I am not.

Even though I like painting at my cosy home a lot, my favourite place to paint is my school. It is Agora Roermond what we’re talking about.

This wonderful location, not really a traditional school of any kind, has some very interesting people in it, that continue to challenge me into further pursuing the ever-important craft of painting. With their support, I have not only greatly increased the depth of my painting skills, but have also broadened it. I have learned to set up a business, communicating with clients, scrum, adapting to wishes of clients, taking a proactive role in my own development, getting things done with team members and various other skills. Most importantly, it has caused me to learn how to teach myself, an ability I very much enjoy the benefits of.

Right now, I’m quite a good painter then. I know how to paint in a way that I already understand, but I also know how to adapt to new tools and skills for painting. I am not perfect, but I will grow. And most importantly, I’m open to learning anything that might serve the quality of my paintings.

So, what about you? Do you share my passion? If so, I would love to hear about it.