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You reap what you sow
introduction
oh my, another digital creator
Well, hello there! Looks like you possibly want to know more about me - I'm Tomasz, I do a lot of things - I'm a web developer, I make music, I draw. I'm passionate, I don't like mediocricity, I'm sadly a perfectionist and an idealist.
Maybe one day I'll come up with some fancy manifesto, but for now this needs to be enough. Scroll away to find out more!
coder without a debugger
currently a fullstack Drupal developer
My career as a web developer started back in 2013. I started my first job as a Drupal web developer while getting my engineer degree. I wanted to be a front-end developer, but fate has decided that I should stay at the back-end.
I've been more involved in React recently, since it expands on Drupal's possibilities. React's process is also something interesting, since it's easy to keep the code clean with components before it gets messy.
BACK-END
PHP, Drupal
My journey with Drupal was, as expected, full of difficulties. It took me years to accept that some things cannot be changed easily, that AJAX forms are painful to make, and also that Drupal gives a lot of possibilities.
I've started with Drupal 7, have worked on many projects, on both front and back ends. I've never liked devops stuff, because I'm always afraid I'm gonna destroy everything. But I was lucky enough to experience living on the edge with doing fixes directly on production (beautiful times *_*).
When Drupal 7's time has come (which in 2024 is still rockin'), I jumped into Drupal 8's world with big eyes. But apart from Drupal, I had some experience with custom frameworks based on PHP, including custom commerce solution for a printing company. I'm also the Acquia Certified Developer - Drupal 9 (since February 2023)
And yes, I don't like debugger, I always preferred var_dump. Playing a detective is fun (procrastination!), but to be honest, debugger saved my life just once, so I hadn't have a chance to understand it and to like it.
FRONT-END
JS, CSS, React
Since my back-end skills were needed at the beginning of my career, my knowledge of CSS became something extra. I've never let go of some front-end work mixed with designing.
Whenever possible, I was doing small front-end stuff, I guess to become a full stack developer. I finally learned JS to a level where I understood it enough to use it. It later on evolved into React (which is awesome!).
Few years ago, I was a front-end developer and a graphic designer for a web game that my friends and I worked on. It was a big adventure, long hours after work and on the weekends.
music is my life
first LP released, next one in progress
One of my "childhood" dreams was to be a rock star, to create music. I wasn't just dreaming, I started playing the guitar, but I got impatient with learning, so I focused on using just one chord to play songs and eventually create some songs. Today those are stored in the depths of my archives, but maybe in the future will "see the world".
Then I've heard about GarageBand and everything changed. In 2021, I created a song I liked so much that I wanted to listen to it easily on Spotify. Ok, but how do you get music there? It quickly turned out that it's not that hard to distribute the music when you have a song, cover art and you don't care about sales and promotion.
Few months later, I made a few more songs to release them all as an EP. And less than later, I released my first full album, "Recharged". Now, the second album is in progress, because I still enjoy making music very much.
drawing & painting
future graphic designer for games
Last time I updated my LinkedIn profile, I added "future graphic designer for games" in my bio. Well, I'm not there yet, but...
Few years ago I learned how to draw (with the help of my amazing teacher). It wasn't something I dreamt of, but together with friends, we worked on creating a web browser game, we needed a graphic designer and I was already sketching on my simple Wacom tablet...
I've done two full Inktobers, back when I had strength for it. I went through a productive phase and a silent one, in which I drew basically nothing. When it's a side hobby, it's hard to keep it up.
But I never gave up and since I started working on music, I had to have some cover arts and now I don't even question doing it. And when drawing digital, I do it on iPad, using Procreate. My professional-like portfolio is still not finished, so for the time being you can visit my DeviantArt page (how oldschool).
is blogging still a thing?
subjectively speaking...
As a millenial, I remember mySpace and blog world. I don't think there are that many blogs now, since most prefer to post daily on social media. I'm not exactly sure how the blog formula will work for me, but just like with art, I sometimes get inspired. My aim is to write with no limits. Be it music review, dev diary, movie reaction, whatever's important at the moment.
I'd like to have a place where I'm not afraid to share my views, although I know that it can get very tricky - but still, let's try. And one last thought. I have many ideas for making apps, for improving my everyday work and the blog (and current website) is sort of a starting point for me to keep it all moving.
the end
This is the end of my website! I hope this experience was cool enough for you. Since contact forms are boring and calling is stressful, my e-mail is below, should you need reaching out to me.
Tomasz Rogalski
iamtomrog@gmail.com
Warsaw, Poland
Earth / Remote
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