It's Now One Year Since My Laptop Was Stolen
I'd had it for five years, my first laptop. I started programming at an early age (Pascal on a very very old desktop computer) but my journey into programming really took off after I got my laptop. Java quickly became my programming language of choice. I was in my second year at University (taking Computer Science) and all I wanted to do was code.
Fast forward to my first job; Still used my then three year old laptop. I signed on as a web developer and had to switch to PHP. At the time I primarily used Windows 7 but I still had an Ubuntu partition, just for kicks. I got be be part of a developer culture, finally understood MVC frameworks (we used Codeigniter) and most importantly, I embraced teamwork.
My second job, about an year later. I was the Lead developer at an online magazine. Work wasn't that intense so I took on side jobs and tried out new programming languages (node.js was quickly becoming popular). I still used my then four year old laptop.
My third job, Spatial Collective, a year later. I signed on as a software developer working primarily on GIS platform so I had to start forging new ground. My Ubuntu installation finally got updated, twende kazi. Then my laptop got stolen.
Devastation. I had repos for all the important projects I had worked on but I was still devastated. My first "hello world" java program was still in there, all the little scripts I wrote to remember basic algorithms were still in there. I had all these programming tutorials in an ordered sequence. An OpenGL project I did for school, took me a month to get done, lost. I never thought I'd loose this stuff, I never knew how much they meant to me.
Roll with the punches. I was starting a new job, learning a new language and a foreign framework and getting to use an actual software development methodology. It was a fresh start. I got a new laptop, installed Linux Mint (came with very high recommendations from my new Team Leader). My projects are now on remote repos, my documents backed up, I feel a lot safer and I love my job.
Summary: don't count the time, make the time count.
