Marcel Scherf

It would be rude not to introduce myself, right? So here you go:

I’m a Rails Developer with experience in many fields.

Programming languages: PHP, Java, C++, Ruby, JavaScript – been there, done that.

Webdesign: Photoshop, CSS, HTML – pretty solid knowledge

I began programming as a young boy (10 years, I think) on my awesome Amiga 500 with expansion box (FPU + more RAM). I started out with Basic and made a small game where you could kill lemmings with your mouse cursor. I had advanced blood effects (red circles really) and speech output. Yes, you heard right. The old Amiga could talk back in 1992.

PC’s really couldn’t keep up with the graphics and the overall package the Amiga delivered, but Commodore somehow managed to blow it.

Well, but enough of that. I don’t want to bore you to death with my childhood memories.

After my first steps with Basic I got a Amiga 1200 and tried to understand Assembler  programming. My parents eventually bought me a very expensive Assembler programming toolkit, but I lost interest very fast, because I couldn’t get my head wrapped around the whole thing.

Then after years of Amiga goodness it was time to switch. Commodore clearly had no future, so I got a PC for christmas. A Cyrix, anyone remember them? On this machine I began coding with Borland C++ Builder.  A really awesome tool back in the day. Way ahead of the market, like my beloved Amiga. (I think you begin to see a pattern here) My texteditor was even featured in a magazine and I recieved emails of people how much they liked it. That was a key moment I guess. People actually like stuff I made on my computer.

After that, there was the internet and all changed. The first websites I made had clouds as a background pattern and a rotating 3D-Email gif. Good times. Then I made a Anna Kournikova Fansite and actually got quite alot of traffic. I even had over 100 people on my mailing list back then.

For this site I made alot of wallpaper backgrounds. First with Paintshop Pro and later with Photoshop. I got really quite good at it and more people came to see my latest stuff. I began pumping out so many wallpapers, boy I wish I still had them.

But somehow this led me to wanting to become a designer or an artist. I always liked draw ing and actually I’m still quiete good at it. Not like many people on deviantart, but better than the average person I guess.

However, I tried to become a Designer after finishing school, but at that time everybody and their dog wanted to be a designer (around 1999-2000) so the market was flooded with people and I didn’t even get a chance. Well, sad story.

In a fast overnight decision I went and begun studying business informatics, but that was rather boring so I quit and chose to do something more practical. Like learing to be a professional programmer. I got the job and the company tought me alot of stuff, but also showed me how not to run projects and how to dismotivate your workforce. After finishing my training I went looking for a better alternative as a Rails Developer. In the company before I was programming Java (with all the good stuff like hibernate and spring). XML Madness and overengineering of simple problems. Waterfall and what have you. Almost any mistake a software company could make in project management. However I wish them luck with their big upcoming project.

So after that episode I’m currently fresh employed by a little startup that is running a web community about health. I’m now in my 2nd month there and it’s very interesting to see what it takes to get a startup off the ground.

So I hope you liked my first post. Please leave me some comments. I’m sure I will find time to post more on this blog, because I find it very refreshing getting my thoughts out there.

See you soon, take care!