When I was fifteen, I was an awkward skinny kid whose voice switched octaves seemingly at random. I was the type of kid who turned bright red even when a girl would say hello. That was me; Now meet Harley Alexander. At only fifteen years old, Harley has accumulated an unprecedented amount of knowledge. While the rest of us, at that age, considered the day to be well spent if we got thirty minutes of actual work done, Harley has raised the bar to an extremely high mark. "How to Be a Rockstar WordPress Designer" co-author at 15? Is that crazy? How did he do it?
How old are you?
I’ve gotten away with 23 – I even managed to score a couple of baileys shots on a flight over to the States recently. I can get away with 19 easy, but I’m actually only 15 – one month off 16!
What part of the world do you live in?
I live about 10 minutes drive from Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia – Very lucky for a surfy like me.
How long have you been studying web development?
For about 4 years. We did a huge project in year 6 that needed a website– I quickly emerged as ‘the help guy’. In year 8 we had to make a website for Design and Technology. I topped the class (30/30) and helped the teachers with stuff. So it all started pretty early and picked up speed.
What languages are you most fluent in?
English, French and Spanish. Oh Web Languages!? I know HTML and CSS like the back of my hand. WordPress stuff is etched in my skull pretty bad too – I think about code all the time… Geek.
You do quite a bit of work with PHP. What caused you to choose this language over the other competitors?
More of a PHP-WordPress hybrid, actually. I’m currently learning PHP in a bit more detail from a mate, but frequently use raw PHP in WordPress development – sometimes WordPress just doesn’t actually have it all (shock horror).
Have you had any formal training?
Nope. Aside from school classes where I knew more about it than the teachers (“What’s a div? We use tables…”), and some really basic Guru help from my two web designer uncles – but they live in NZ so not so much. I’m pretty much self taught. I actually recently wrote an article about it on my site
What's your text editor of choice?
Coda by far! It’s so sexy… But I must admit the upcoming Espresso is looking rather sleek. I must have a copy of CSSEdit to compliment Coda however, because the CSS editor in Coda is kinda shoddy.
Javascript library of choice?
jQuery seems to dominate a lot of my brain space. The way it’s used just seems so streamline – thus the reason behind the lack of MooTools and Dojo Tutorials!
Your web dev heroes?
I don’t generally know the people behind the sites so much as the sites themselves. Which is a shame really. Unless you advertise yourself like Adii does! His business stuff is pretty amazing and well thought out.
Despite the business relationship I have with Collis, I think it’s pretty amazing what he and Cyan have done with Envato and FlashDen. It’s kinda like going from nothing to a multi-million dollar corporation in a few years – amazing stuff.
I think guys like Small Potato of WPDesigner (Shame it went to crap), Alen Grakalic of CSSGlobe and the Dejan Cancarevic of Stylized Web are champs too, I mean they’ve all built content and a site that was good enough to be sold off from nothing (CSSGlobe isn’t actually for sale, but the content and following is proof enough). I’d sort of wished I could get a few thousand followers from nothing when I started off. Then I found feedburner/analytics and it became an addiction.
How have you managed to learn so much at such a young age? Have you been forced to make sacrifices in other areas of your life?
Indeed, something’s gotta give with all the time I put into it. My parents have had to talk to me about balancing schoolwork and my other stuff. In fact when I signed up to do the book I got a specific lecture to pick up my game at school. But I’m allowed to take my laptop to school, so when I finish schoolwork quickly (typing>handwriting), I can get on with my other stuff.
It’s actually funny, come to think of it, school is probably the only thing that suffers. I love all my sport and seeing friends more than the web dev stuff (it’s also very important to lead a balanced lifestyle), and school is the only thing I like less. Not to say web stuff is at the bottom of my priority list, it’s just if I’ve been coding all night, I’ll wanna go play some sport the next day.
Your most recommended web development book?
I don’t really learn from books. But if I had to pick a set of eBooks that I read, it’d have to be any of the O'Reilley cookbooks. I learn by doing, so if there is a product at the end (rather than knowledge of integers and how they relate to ruby), then I’m happy and will have learnt something. Any practical books/eBooks.
*Note - you might be interested in reading 50 Must-read books on web development.
You recently finished helping Collis write the "WordPress Rockstar" book. Can you talk a bit about the writing process? Did you enjoy it? Is it possible that you might have to go back and edit your work in order to compensate for WordPress 2.7?
This was a huge milestone in my little ‘career’. It came right after my ‘big break’ (big at my age) with the NETTUTS job, so I was really pumped about it. I finished it ASAP (within a month I think), and have been eager to hear response about it from whoever gets it!
In terms of a process, I’d DO what needed to be done, and then I’d re-teach it. I wouldn’t jump straight into teaching, I’d just do something rough THEN write about it. I dealt with hiccups along the way. Sometimes I’d be frustrated for days on end because one small segment of code isn’t working. A bit of a pain. It was a bit of a struggle getting tutorials in on time whilst I was also writing the book – so I requested a month off to do so, and it worked out well.
It was like writing one, big huge tutorial (or 4), which I really enjoy doing. As I said, I learn by doing, so even throughout writing I went through a huge learning curve myself – some techniques I never knew existed. I was very lucky that I got the ‘job’ in the first place – I was actually pitching an idea for a tutorial to Collis that happened to be pretty much what the book was (a-z of WordPress).
Thanks to WordPress 2.7, I will most definitely have to fix some stuff – Collis or I will have to fix all the screenshots. Lucky there weren’t that many… But it’s still a bit of a pain. Good thing is, the beta of 2.7 has been released with the new interface fully implemented so we can be up to date – maybe even release in time with the release of WordPress – who knows?
Would you like to write more books in the future?
Absolutely! I had so much fun writing it, learnt so much, and it was a huge challenge that I enjoyed tackling head on. The entire business side of things (I.E. meeting with Collis, arranging legal stuff, payment etc) was also a huge learning curve, as there are so many hiccups due to legal things it’s not funny. I wasn’t aware that we needed to go through a zillion different copies of contracts to get it just perfect! It introduced me to the ugly world of finances and the lot.
But yeah, most definitely up for another writing challenge. I think it’d be cool to have a whole lot of books that I can take to job interviews, etc, and the surprise on people’s faces when you tell them ‘Oh yeah I wrote a book’ is just golden.
Do you plan on working at a design firm in the next few years, or would you prefer the freelance life?
I most definitely want to experience working for a design firm. It’s kinda one of those things that make you feel immersed in the field. I know hardly anybody personally that knows half a thing about WordPress. Most people know what a Blog is, but not WordPress, which is kinda frustrating. It’s nice to talk to the few who know what Smashing Magazine and NETTUTS are. I also think that it would give me a perspective on how to participate in group projects, rather than doing my own thing from start to finish. I also envision that a firm will be as cool as the Google offices – all fun stuff to relax when work gets too hard. I’ve vowed to never work in a cubicle.
You're one of the most consistent writers on NETTUTS. How do you come up with new ideas every week?
It’s getting harder, but I look at trends in top blogs and sites and do my best to replicate them in WordPress. I really want to write more than just WordPress, and am learning Joomlah – I wish it was as easy as WordPress. Drupal is a nightmare, all those weird panels and headers. My next tutorial is going to be a WordPress options tutorial!
I also think as big as I possibly can with the languages/techniques – jQuery has vast animation, so I dream up the most extensive interactive interfaces, then scale it down till I can write about it – The whole Leopard jQuery Desktop idea started off as like a 3D thing that you could fling objects about – but that proved impossible. I was playing around with all the Leopard stuff as procrastination for schoolwork, and I tried to replicate a stack in jQuery. It worked, so I saw what else I could do.
Finally, I’ve noticed that Article articles always get warm reception – if there is a list, a set of tips, or links I can provide, I’ll scour the web for the best of that, include it and use it. I Haven’t done much of that though.
Another great way to get inspiration is to simply look at suggestions! If I see a suggestion that is plausible, I’ll sit down and try to learn it, then write about it!
You use jQuery extensively in your NETTUTS tutorials. Is there any one feature that you wish the jQuery library would implement?
I’d really like jQuery’s animation to be a bit smoother and faster – if you use too much on one page it tends to become buggy. Other than that, I’m actually surprised as to how near-perfect jQuery is for my purposes – it’s readable code that works and is easy to learn/understand. What more could you want?
What made you choose jQuery over the other available libraries?
It’s so easy to use! I initially started trying to use MooTools (I like the name, and ‘Moo’ is my girlfriend’s nickname for me). I tried to grasp MooTools, and I had a load of help from a talented programmer called Jenna ‘BlueBerry’ Fox – I wrote an article about her a while back.
My interest in MooTools subsided, and I realised to create even better websites I should probably learn a JavaScript library properly – JavaScript itself is too clunky! It actually ‘officially’ got me into it when I was trying to make a light switch on and off in my old desk-y design. I used raw JS and that took 11 lines, without animation. With jQuery AND animation, I was able to make it switch on and off with just 5 lines. Pretty funky stuff.
There was recently a debate on NETTUTS over whether or not it's advisable for talented young developers like yourself to delay their career three-four years to attend college. What are your thoughts on the subject?
Look I think that you can have a balance of both. I mean if I can manage my school life to the point where it’s satisfactory but not the best, and still do all the work I do, then I think you can balance both. I daresay that High School is more intensive than Uni (Australian College) - according to my older friends anyway.
The other thing is, is that you could always study something design related to keep you in check with what you’re doing! You can get a degree in something you enjoy.
That said, what are your plans for the immediate and further future?
I’ve recently put my subject selection in at school; I’m dropping most of the academic studies and pursuing all my languages and Design; French, Spanish, English, DT, Visual Arts and Maths. All going according to plan, I’ll drop Visual Arts in the first few weeks and head over to TAFE once a week (TAFE is vocational skills College for adults) for a Multimedia course.
Then in year 12 (final year of school), I’m going to drop Maths and replace the Multimedia course with a Graphic Design course. So I’ll be doing intensive Language and Design for my final marks – which I think is a good move. It’s also what I want to do, not what I should do.
Then after school, I think I’m gonna go travel for a long time. I have contacts all over the world, thanks to my traveling in the past, so I’ll meet up with loads of friends and hopefully find a whole lot out about myself too.
For Uni, I think I’ll do a Web Design course, going more into the theory and programming side of things rather than design and front end stuff – as boring as that sounds I think it’ll be a good foundation.
What advice would you give anyone as young as you wanting to get started up in this field?
Instead of a generic ‘Stick with it, it’ll show results in time’, I’m gonna be very abstract and tell you all to invest time in skills rather than knowledge. A good lesson my Dad taught me is to always pick skill building over academic stuff. That’s crazy you might say! But I think it works on the same principle as ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’. People and Skills, in my opinion are much more valuable than knowledge.
Also, stick with it! I said I wouldn’t… But one common mistake I make all the time is to give up after a few attempts of something working – if not now, then never, right!? Wrong. Persist. You’ll get there, if someone out there can do it, so can you.
What’s next on the agenda for you in terms of Skills then?
I want to learn an MVC style language/library rather badly. I’m tossing up between Ruby on Rails, CodeIgniter and CakePHP. I love how CakePHP has little metaphors for all the things (I.E. Salts and the Bakery), which I think would make it easier to understand. Some form of backend development though.
And do you have any short term goals and a ‘pie in the sky’ set of goals?
Who doesn’t?! Short term, I’d love to get a decent following on my site Baffle! inc.. I really want to make content that people read, and will feel satisfied when it’s reflected in number of readers/traffic. I’m not so much money focused for my site’s goals, and would much prefer the idea that people are listening to what I have to say and want to hear it.
My pie in the sky goals are the silly goals that sound crazy big. Ultimately, I’d love to have a passive stream of income that brings in enough money to travel and live all over the World. Then settle down with a babe of a wife and a few kids somewhere in Europe (Possible Geneva or Madrid) and freelance – It’s fun! I’m only 15 years old though, so that’s all still up in the sky.
Enough about web design! What hobbies do you have, what do you do with your life at current?
As I mentioned, I think it’s very very important to have a balanced lifestyle – too much of a screen isn’t healthy for you. I love my sport, and it’s a great release when a script wont work too. I surf, do Tae Kwon Do and kickboxing – along with a hell of a lot of Basket Ball at school (I’m 6’3”, comes in handy).
I go out a lot, spend weekends at friends’ places, go to parties, go for walks, go to the beach, the lot. You need to be able to escape the interwebs world and get into the real world, because you need to succeed as a person before doing well online.
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Thanks so much to Harley for taking the time to be interviewed. Next Friday (Saturday for some), we'll be posting an interview with Jonathan Snook. See you then!
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )jorisshh November 7th
Nicely done
( )Christian Dalsvaag November 7th
Nice interview, but maybe you should lay of the drinking till you’re old enough? haha, just kidding!
Good luck with the book!
( )jbcarey November 7th
…. I’m having trouble reading interviews from… teenagers. Where are the webdev BIG GUNS.
I realise these are the new generation and such, but still…
( )James November 7th
Whoaa! 15 and already co-authored a book!
Nice interview Harley!
What’s with the pink gloves?
( )Johns Beharry November 7th
Dam i’m jealous and I’m 17 ^^
( )Thats great and really inspiring
Great Interview
Shane November 7th
Thanks for making me feel really old. Really. Really. Old.
How about an interview with a pensioner who’s fluent in PHP? That’ll make me feel a bit better
Seriously, though, amazing stuff – I will be buying the book that’s for sure.
( )Erik Gyepes November 7th
Harley you are very inspirational for many of us, though. Keep up the good work. I’m looking forward to your next articles out there.
( )Jeffrey Way November 7th
@jbcarey – Why would you have trouble with that? These guys are more talented than many people twice their age. That’s the idea.
Besides, we’ve interviewed the big guns, and will continue to do so. Refer to the Interviews category to read interviews with Eric Meyer, Jeff Croft, Jeffrey Zeldman, etc. Next week, we’re interviewing Jonathan Snook.
( )chris simpson November 7th
Great interview. STFU anyone who cant distance age from knowledge.
Age doesn’t matter AT ALL, Harley clearly had knowledge that is useful for all, and frankly this was INSPIRATIONAL. Who cares if he’s still a teenager?
I’m 20, work as a fulltime PHP developer in a small/mid sized firm in UK, I’ve been into web for YEARS, I skipped the University (US college – right?) route, but i’ve seen the rise of CSS, frameworks, jQuery, the lot… I really respect ‘the greats’ of this industry (Meyer, Snook, Cederholm, etc..) but the ‘newcommers’ have so so so much to give. Look at Envato and Virb: All Big-Guns of the industry but are all reasonably young companies…
Kudos to Harley having an off-screen life too! Its great to break the ‘web-nerd’ stereotype that we all have to endure when telling people what we do for a living.
All in all. Wow. Definately a big name for the future, and i will happily buy a copy of the book.
Niceone!
( )chris simpson November 7th
@Jeffrey Way – Great reply. Looking forward to the Snook interview.. You’re doing a great job.
( )insic November 7th
this guy is awesome.
( )sean steezy November 7th
Props to the young gunz that are coming up in this field, I am eternally jealous.
Its like the little 10 year old at the skatepark, one year they’re dorking around trying to ollie, next year, they learn kickflips, and the year after that, they’re jumping down 15 stair handrails….
I always thought the younger you are when you start to do something, the better you get, faster than those older heads.
Harley, don’t ever stop learning & progressing. Props!
( )Joe Holdcroft November 7th
Interesting interview, it’s great to see that some eyes are being opened to the amount of interest and skill within a younger group of the industry. There is a lot more of it than is often initially apparent!
Having gone straight from school into a design/development studio, I am certain I made the right choice for myself, but it would be really interesting to hear about people’s experiences taking the route of college/university.
Very much looking forward to next week’s interview!
( )Bryan P November 7th
I agree that in many cases simply having a diploma does not propel you to the forefront. You really need to network with people who know people.
People are more willing to take you under their wing, if they see promise or ability. Then a stranger helping out a stranger.
Some how you were able to meet the right people which has made you so popular.
( )Ben G November 7th
Props kid!
( )B McCarrie November 7th
I read your article “Education = Success?” and I couldn’t disagree more.
What does a formal education in graphic design give you?
1. The basics. Some people may think the basics are worthless but you can’t build a house without a foundation. When I say the basics I mean, basic design principles like layout, composition, usability, readability and the design process.
2. Experience. I remember in my one design class we had to create 50 yes 50 different thumbnail sketches of a design before moving forward. This kind of experience makes you think in different ways. People don’t do this in the real world.
3. Skills. When you begin to develop skills that are based on the basics and experience, you then really start to explore different design possibilities. It’s not all bells and whistles.
Now I do agree that some people can get a formal design education and come away falling flat. But anyone with the slightest hint of talent will excel because of the training.
Oh, one more thing. Don’t drink so much. You’ll regret it.
( )Tommy Day November 7th
I’m 23 and I probably would have a hard time passing for 23
( )Alex November 7th
Jeffrey, I’m loving these interviews. It’s great to see how different people “get it done”. The age spread just gives more viewpoints.
Kudos to Harley for getting so much started so young.
( )gabe November 7th
Great story
( )Sean November 7th
“JavaScript itself is too clunky”… sad face.
Javascript isn’t clunky at all, its a fantastically powerful language.
What are these teenagers doing “working” instead of playing? I enforce into teens minds play while you can, cause once you start working, you’ll work for the rest of your life.
( )Levi Figueira August 29th
And what’s so bad about “working for the rest of your life”?
It won’t be until people break out of that mindset of “work = bad; fun = good” that productivity will increase! Work shouldn’t be “The 40 Hours” but something you do for a living and that you *enjoy*!! That’s what I appreciate with this kid: he loves his work!
It’s interesting how it becomes hard to use the word “work” if you like your job and enjoy doing it, isn’t it?
Productivity in this line of creative work comes with flexible hours, busy lives and lots of experiments outside the “workplace”… Go out, watch the sunset, surf, enjoy a beer with friends and get your work done, within the time frames, with top quality and THEN you’ll be able to consider yourself “successful” (not by the size of you bank account or the amount of hours you spend at your workplace).
( )Andrew Pryde November 7th
I have just turned 16 and have been running a webdesign company (basicly I freelance) since I was 14
Andrew
( )James November 7th
I agree with sean (^) about the misconception of JavaScript being too “clunky” – You may prefer jQuery, but don’t forget, jQuery is JavaScript! In a perfect world you shouldn’t be using jQuery unless you know what’s going on behind the scenes, or at least have some idea…
But Sean, why so pessimistic about life? Work can be fun! I’m sure Harley doesn’t think of his work as “work” – He probably enjoys it. Don’t you enjoy your work? (If you don’t then QUIT because life’s too short!)
( )Jeffrey Way November 7th
@TommyDay – That’s my favorite comment of this entire thread. Very funny. ….I’m in the same boat.
( )Sean November 7th
It’s not pessimism. It’s reality. Once you start working, you won’t be free of it.
I love what I do. But I’d certainly prefer to spend a little less time doing it: I could spend more time with my wife, and play games with my brother, and feel more relaxed, if I could work less. I miss the “freedom” of being younger, sometimes.
I’m just simply amazed at some teenagers’ eagerness to work, when you’re at a time in your life where you don’t have to. Soon, you will have to, and you can no longer easily make room for other things.
Sure, I programmed as a hobby in middle/high school. But usually in math class on my TI-83, or occasionally at home. Entertainment always found a way of pushing hobbies to the side.
( )Justin Shreve November 7th
Interesting set of interviews here
.
I’m actually 17 myself. Started doing this stuff when I’m 15 so it’s cool to see I’m not the only one around the NETTUTS community this young.
( )Chris November 7th
@Sean I disagree.
Instant gratification is no way to live ones life. If you do something you enjoy and do it for a long time you will get good at it. Being skilled gives you freedom, opportunities, respect and the ability to do things your own way.
Another thing that skill gets you is the ability to be more productive in the same period of time thus freeing up time to do other things, like spend time with family.
I would never recommend doing something you hate when you are young to make money but something you enjoy that builds skills for later life… another matter.
@James I wouldn’t say that people should know Javascript to use jQuery (or words to those effects). If one is a light user of scripting and has no need to learn the underlying code then what is the point. jQuery provides a level of abstraction that allows it to stand by itself and do a job that people require. How far should one go. Should we also be required to learn how browsers parse Javascript, or perhaps how an engine works before driving a car.
( )Hayden Gascoigne November 7th
As much as I love NETTUTS, I would like to see tutorials instead of all of these interviews.
( )Furley November 7th
Great interview. It seems all the developers interviewed share a few things in common [no matter their age]. They all have an strong passion for development and a thirst for knowledge. As long as you love developing and learning new techniques, you can’t go wrong in this field.
Cheers Harley!
( )Ben Griffiths November 7th
Great interview, thanks!
( )Keenan Payne November 7th
Nice, I wish I would get interviewed. Anyways, great interview!
( )Miles Johnson November 7th
@Andrew Pryde – How is any of that even legal?
( )Miles Johnson November 7th
Its a nice interview, but I dont see anything special about this kid… hes a basic frontend developer like every other dev.
( )Zarathustra November 7th
Can’t you block insics comments? I can’t take this place seriously while it enables such blatent spam. “Her” face is just so tiresome.
( )nhoss2 November 7th
hey thats some amazing stuff, im from brisbane. its really nice to see people from Australia. keep it up
( )Ben Carroll November 7th
Man I wish I had the time to write a book! But I am way to busy with running my own design business, at 17.
I think that the kids that start early with learning their design skills have a great future ahead of them.
So what does it take to get an interview?
( )mike November 7th
Cool interview, great to see someone this young with big plans and for his age he seems pretty level headed, knows what he wants and isn’t afraid to go after it. Definitely inspirational.
( )Ariyo November 7th
Great interview. Enjoyed reading it. keep it up.
( )cito November 8th
Damn! Now I’m feeling so old with my 21…
( )Brandon S. Adkins November 8th
Education = Success? Not always.
I wasted four years of my life at college. I had taught myself enough that I knew more than the professors… AND they used tables for web development. Often.
I got a benefit from about 1-2 classes and those were more based on print design and typography. That professor knew what he was doing. Wish the other 98% of classes had been that good.
( )Chris November 8th
This interview vaguely reminds me of the Fountain Head book any Ann Randt. The ambition and thirst for knowledge is so superior that I find myself rethinking my petty ambitions and jumping them up a notch or two.
Great Read!
( )Tim Fox November 8th
I’m 18 and totally jealous of you and Justin’s exposure
( )I think I’m going to stick with my film making over web design though
web design’s great but I’m not nearly as good you two (Justin also)
lol as a matter of fact I’m about to base my website on Justin’s latest jQuery tut.
Sean Neill November 8th
I just turned 15 years old myself (and have been into design/development for less than a year). It’s pretty inspiring to see where this guy has gone at such a young age. It’s nice to know that there are kids that are my age that are also interested in this stuff.
As for the big guns vs. young guns debate, I think that us teenagers are just as important, if not more important, than the Zeldmans and Meyers out there, given the drive and fire that we bring to the table.
( )Harley November 8th
Hey Guys! Whoah, I didn’t realise how much I have to reply to!
@Christian Dalsvaag: I honestly don’t drink that much! It’s just a good photo from me from Vegas! Baileys in a love of mine, but I don’t drink it regularly, honest!
@James: The pink gloves; have you seen the blink 182 album Enema Of The State? I wanted to take a similar thing for my girlfriend as a joke, but my sister took it too quickly and I wasn’t ready. My girlfriend likes this one better than the actual one!
@Chris Simpson: Yeah, I think it’s very important to have a balanced lifestyle! I didn’t stress it enough in my answers.
@Bryan P: That’s how I got into this game to where I’m at now. As I said, no official teaching got me to where I am now, just people believing in me (as clichéd as that sounds) and giving me the benefit of the doubt has got me here.
@B McCarrie: My article wasn’t geared towards that. I wasn’t saying it’d push anybody back getting an education or make them dumber, I was more implying that it wasn’t 100% necessary to make it big. There are millions of examples of people like that! I agree, it does give you experience in terms of a more structured design process (Don’t you worry, my DT teacher has it nailed into the back of my skull). Once again, I don’t drink that often
but thanks for the concern.
@Sean: When I say it’s too clunky, it’s another raw programming language. I’m so precious I only like to learn frameworks, therefore jQuery and the want for a programming and MVC model. I know it IS JavaScript
I also don’t think it’s so much dubious work! I have a ball with all my friends and my girlfriend, whilst still being able to live this ’successful’ life. I love my life; in fact I’ve had a conversation with my girlfriend that it’s actually the best my life has been in forever. It’s not work, I enjoy it! I can be free of this work if I want. If I’m sick of working for my HSC, I’ll stop! But I wont, because I love what I do and and can still have plenty of time for my friends and girlfriend.
@Chris: I completely agree about the whole JS/JavaScript thing. I have it for my uses; if I need it for other stuff, then I’ll probably learn what I need to learn! jQuery is suffice enough!
@Furley: You nailed it in one! I love what I do, and I want to know more! Thanks for the encouragement.
@mike: my girlfriend said exactly the same thing when she read the interview! Creepy…
@Brandon S. Adkins: Yes! You agree! It’s not necessary, see!
@Sean Neill: Keep it up! You’ll break through soon!
( )alex November 9th
You remind me a bit of myself, blond hair, 15, into web dev
( )Rachel November 9th
Wow…at 25 I hadn’t accomplished half of what he accomplished at 15. Good job!
( )Jammin November 10th
@Chris
“perhaps how an engine works before driving a car.” – Beautifully said.
( )Buzu November 10th
Sean for some people working is like playing so they really never start working or stop playing. It’s just like having fun while making money.
I agree with James’s comment. I don’t like the dependency people is having on frameworks, specially jQuery, because then its us, the ral JS programmers who have to deal with them when something goes wrong in their little, perfect, framework-based world.
Congratulations Harley.
( )Harley Alexander November 10th
Heh thanks Buzu
Buzu I don’t think we bug you particularly much do we? If we have a problem with jQuery we go to jQuery people not JS people…
( )Greg Althoff November 10th
Crazy. At age 15 I had one my dad’s friends install Doom on our computer. From there I got super interested in computers and other games like Rise of the Triad and Quake… You took the smarter route at your age for sure. Its crazy to see how many opportunities are out there for kids your age nowadays. I’m sitting here at age 29 in awe at what your generation has to offer, its incredible.
Harley if you ever looking for some creative freelancers to team up with when you’ve got projects let us know! ha.
http://www.blkmtnstudio.com/
( )Sean November 10th
I’m not praising instant gratification. And I understand designing/developing can be fun. I have fun developing.
But I also know that time is never worth what your employer/clients are willing to pay you. I would always take time over some more money.
So my concern was that if teenagers are working because they like having money, they’ll soon learn that they might miss the time they used up in their teen years.
I certainly programmed as a hobby, and if you do it for fun, cheers to ya.
( )JustChris November 10th
What a great early start for this guy. When I was 15 I was just getting my first computer, but then again it was 1997 so I didn’t have the same web development opportunities as this kid, with PHP just being a young pup.
( )Buzu November 10th
[Harley] well yeah, you go to jQuery people if you have a problem with jQuery, but when you have a problem using three different frameworks and have no clue of what is causing the problem you (I don’t mean you particularly, but you, framerwokers) come to us. At least that’s my experience. I’m not criticizing, I’m just saying that it’s always a good Idea to know what’s going on behind scenes, and lots of frameworkers don’t have it.
( )duellsy November 11th
Yeah, jealousy is the key word there.
Good to see a fellow aussie gettin credit where credits due. kudos to you
( )Andrew McCloud November 12th
Being a web-developer is like the new hip thing to be.
I guess I would have been more impressed if he was 15 five years ago when web wasn’t as popular and knowledge wasn’t so easy to come by.
( )Señor B November 12th
@Shane » You said, “How about an interview with a pensioner who’s fluent in PHP? That’ll make me feel a bit better
”
You can feel better now. I’ve been programming in PHP for 7 years, and receiving Social Security and Medicare for 5 years.
( )Allahverdi November 13th
Woho, I’m younger than all you. I’m 13 and 3 years in web design and developing
Wish will write a book when i will be 15, or earlier – this year
Anyways, great.
( )Neill November 13th
Awesome work, a good read, will keep you bookmarked
( )Anx November 13th
Never ever pay attention to a guy who poses for pictures..
( )Face Book November 17th
nice facebook rip on your site….is that not illegal copying their content?
( )Thomas November 21st
Wow im 15 to maybe not as good but still i would credit myself on my knowledge
i mean my site ant that bad etech-hq.info (it only works in firefox and safari css 3)
( )Timur Milshtane December 19th
wow, inspiring
I’m into Web things too and i’m 15, i didn’t thought it’s possible to get that far like u did in this early age.
It’s a bit difficult for me to make a “break through” because of my bad English(self-expression and grammer mainly, Russian and hebrew are my native languages)
By the way can i have your email? (I won’t bother)
Best Regards, Timur Milshtane.
( )Jimi January 5th
I’m officially jealous!
( )Isaac Seymour January 17th
lol. I can’t believe how many of us 15-year-old web developers there are! Congrats to Harley on the Wordpress book and Nettuts tutorials. I’m kinda a bit sucky and both dev and design, so I try to do good artwork and fail (I can’t drawn to save my life) and then try to develop and kinda back away from anything too difficult. Looks like you’ve got dev nailed
Coda is great! I’m about to buy it now because the trial has run out, but I haven’t used it to design a site from scratch yet, so I’ll probably find out pretty soon what you mean about the sucky-ness of the CSS capabilities.
Strange thing is – I sort-of prefer designing, but I love Maths at school? It’s a bit weird. Anyway, I’m definitely going to the best uni I can get into, but I will probably do Maths or something like that. I think not getting a degree is limiting your future options, and makes you reliant on references, portfolio etc and means that you can’t change tracks if you need to.
Best of luck to all of us young designers/developers – maybe we should start some kind of international co-operative of young web devs? that would be awesome
.
Isaac
( )Isaac Seymour January 17th
Yikes, my comment is incredibly long… I always seem to do that…. Sorry for the essay guys. (and girls)
( )Jenna ‘BlueBerry’ Fox January 18th
Woah! When I was browsing this site and saw ‘Harley Alexander’ I knew that name was so familiar! It sure is a small world! Nice to know I helped enough to be worth a mention!
Good luck with the book, harley! Oh and hey, if you want to learn about the tinniest little mvc framework around, I’d be happy to be a tutor again! I’m totally addicted to camping these days, and am building a little pushy web chat thing in it, having basically finished my previous publishing webapp, http://egopage.me/
Ruby is totally worth it! CakePHP might be nice, but it’s still running on PHP!
( )O.J. February 13th
@Jenna, no offence, but I don’t think many people have problems with CakePHP running on PHP, or PHP for that matter. Just my two cents’ worth.
( )Muhammad Adnan March 14th
i really appreciate you Harley !
i hope u go more and more !
good luck
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