When I was 15, I started learning C, the moved on to C++, using the most excellent Turbo C++ 1.0. I remember being really excited, because it was the first MDI-style editor that I had seen (previously, I had been using TurboC). I would spend a lot of time in my room writing programs.

At 18, I spent around 9 months in Berkeley, California, working at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory through the Science and Engineering Research Semester; I worked in the astronomy department.

From 20 to 24, I lived in Hungary, teaching English and writing small applications for myself. During this time, I learned VBA, writing an Excel application for a language school to keep track of classes, students and payroll. Using the small Excel-based database that I developed during this project, I created several language-learning-oriented applications that I used in my classes to help students learn.

When I was 24, I got a job as a web developer doing ASP (I briefly used the pre-ASP Microsoft web technology, but I prefer to forget about that). At 25, I moved into a job writing applications in Visual Basic. That was the beginning of my career, and I haven't really looked back.

In 2002, I started doing C#. In 2004, I was lucky enough to be involved in an Extreme Programming (XP) immersion training with Object Mentor, having the opportunity to learn from Bob Martin (Uncle Bob), Lowell Lindstrom and Bob Koss (Dr. Bob). At that point, my whole approach to programming changed; and, as XP tends to do, it started to affect my whole life, as well.

From 2004 until 2008, I actively searched to improve my development skills, focusing on incremental design, pair-programming and test-driven development. During the 2005 Agile Conference, I went to a talk by Dave Astels about Behavior-Driven Development. This talk changed the way I looked at my tests, and my understanding of TDD, itself, started to evolve into using it more as a design methodology.

In 2008, I switched from doing C# full-time to Ruby on Rails full-time. This was a major change in my life, as it opened up a whole new world of possibilities with my development.

In September of 2008, after losing my job, and I found that I had stashed away a few months worth of savings. This allowed me to take a step back from the day-to-day grind and look at what I might want to do with my life. That's when I decided to finally go on my pair-programming tour.

In December, 2008, I set out on the road, spending 3 weeks on the road, pair-programming with different people in exchange for room and board. It was on this initial trip that I attended the Chicago Software Craftsmanship Summit. This was a gathering of like-minded people looking to establish a sense of craftsmanship and professionalism in the software industry. The goal of the summit was to craft a Software Craftsmanship Manifesto. We came away from the meeting with a draft of sorts, and, after a bit more discussion on the mailing list, Doug Bradbury wrote what has now become the official Software Craftsmanship Manifesto.

Since then, the movement has continued to spread, and I have worked to actively promote the ideals and message of Software Craftsmanship: professionalism in both career-development and skills-development.

From December, 2008, I spent about a year traveling to pair-program in exchange for room and board. As I traveled, I kept a primarily video-oriented blog around the topic of craftsmanship, called "On Being A Journeyman Software Developer." This blog contained my writings, interviews with people I met and "Road Thoughts," monologues about the ideas that I would like to share. Since I had the opportunity to meet so many different people, I also started a series of videos called "How I Got Started In Programming" which captures people's origin stories.

In the fall of 2009, I spent a couple months contracting at Relevance Software. While I learned a tremendous amount during the year of travels, I feel it is important to periodically sit down and focus on delivering actual software. Building software for release is like a muscle: it can be built up enough to not need constant attention, but it will start to atrophy if you don't exercise it.

At the beginning of 2010, I began plans for a Code Retreat tour. Code Retreat is a focused-practice event that I helped develop and facilitate throughout 2009. I am spending the year traveling around the world, introducing people to the idea, facilitating events and sharing a proven formula for effectively holding one. While traveling, I will continue to do the video interviews that I began during the 2008/2009 pair-programming tour, including the "How I Got Started In Programming" series. The new videos will be released in podcast format through the 5by5.tv network.

Along with the Code Retreat tour, I will also be doing the following activities:

• Contracting
• Teaching
• Establishing and managing the coreyhaines community contribution fund