Tessa van Walstijn

Introduction

I'm a software engineer based in Hoorn, the Netherlands. Specializing in building inclusive, accessible, and complex; applications.

Some of thing I do in my free time are: • Lego's • Formula 1 • Programming • Drawing & Gaming

Profile picture by @Catstyle0 on Twitter

My mission

"Creating equal, inclusive, and accessible; tech spaces"

What I have seen in technical environments, is that the content usually lacking one of the following: inclusive, accessible, and approachable.

Within my work, I am advocating for accessible, mobile friendly (yes that is part of accessibility as well); software. With content that is accessible and approachable.

Other things

👪 Comunities: Stack Overflow, Meta Exchange, Ask Ubuntu, SheSharp
⚡ Fun fact: I started programming @ the age of 13
🌱 Studying: Differences in CJS and ESM with NPM packages
🎙️ Catch me live developing: Twitch MsTess
💝 Support me: GitHub Ko-fi
😄 Pronouns: She/Her/Hers

How I got into programming

Thanks for scrolling this far! I would like to bring you on my journey on how I got into programming.

When I was 13 I got my hands on a hacked version of Minecraft because I was not allowed to buy the $5,- game of my dad since he didn't trust it. I really wanted to play Minecraft online with my friends. However, hacked versions of Minecraft could not connect to official Minecraft servers. Therefor I needed to get into an un-official Minecraft server that didn't check your Minecraft account. Joining those I quickly found out that almost everyone was hacking.

Time for me to get some hacks as well. I got quickly banned because some hacks are recognized by the server. According to the internet I had two options first buy good hacks or modify/create it your self. For me the latter was the only option, so I learned the minimal in Java to edit and modify the hacks.

My instrest was sparked, I wanted to make my own site to tell people that I had my own Minecraft server as well. With a home made server mod for NPC's, and Quests. Following the wise words of the internet: they recommended using WordPress (version 3.8). Made my own website and had some irrelevant Minecraft content on it. I got frustrated with the speed of some WordPress themes. Witch triggered me to create my own and move some theme logic towards the front-end. Internet Explores was still actively used (~16%) so I was discouraged on using ECMAScript 5.

This evolved to creating games with Unity 3D in C# since around that same time a good friend of mine was interested in creating 3D models, so I hyped him up to create together a game that became a horror game The Baby Hotel. The game never finished but we had a lot of fun working on it.

Eventually I did a study at Mediacollege Amsterdam and did the Application & Media Development with the specialization Game Developer. A lot of development and programming lingo clicked back then.