Panel: Charles Max Wood Guest: Zachary Kessin This week on My JavaScript Story, Charles speaks with Zachary Kessin. Zach is a web developer who has written Programming HTML5 Applications and Building Web Applications with Erlang. Currently, he works a lot with functional programming. He first got into programming because his mother used to write in Lisp and he earned his first computer by begging his relatives to help pitch in to get him one when he was seven. They talk about what led him to Erlang and Elm, why he wanted to be a programmer from a young age, and what he is most proud of in his career. In particular, we dive pretty deep on:

• JavaScript Jabber Episode 57
• JavaScript Jabber Episode 169
• Zach intro
• Elm and Erlang
• How did you first get into programming?
• Mother was writing Lisp when he was a kid
• RadioShack color computer
• Mother taught him Basic
• Pascal and AP Computer Science
• Studied CS originally in college and then switches to Physics
• First web app written in Pearl 4
• Did PHP for a living for a while and hated it
• Elm saves him time and effort
• What was it that made you want to program from a young age?
• Don’t be afraid to jump into programming at a late age
• Elm error messages
• Writes fewer tests in Elm code that JS code
• What are you most proud of?
• Loves mentoring
• Making a difference in the community
• It’s not just about the code, it’s about the people
• What are you doing now?
• And much, much more!

Links:

• JavaScript Jabber Episode 57
• JavaScript Jabber Episode 169
• Programming HTML5 Applications
• Building Web Applications with Erlang
• Elm
• Erlang
• Lisp
• Zach’s GitHub
• @zkessin