About Adrian Henry
By Adrian on December 27, 2015 inWho Am I? And What Is Hungry Turtle Code?
I will start with myself. My name is Adrian Henry and I founded Hungry Turtle Code. I am a 26 year old currently living in the UK.
Code has played a part of my life since my early teens, but I was always mainly a hardware kind of guy. I loved tinkering with electronics and building cool projects. Of course code was usually involved in some capacity.
I then went to University and did a degree in Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Loughborough University in Leicestershire, England.
I even worked for a while as an Electronic Engineer at a (very) large multinational.
I Needed MOAR Code!
During my time at university, I started getting more and more focused on code. I took modules in C, C++, ARM assembly as well as a lot of Matlab (engineers looooooove Matlab, often too much. But that’s a whole different conversation).
Things really started to turn for me when I got involved in a module dedicated to computer networking, specifically TCP/IP. During this time I started writing network level Python.
It was at this point that I knew software was where I should be, despite still having a deep and passionate love for hardware.
During this time, I was also pursuing other programming languages in my spare time. I learnt JavaScript and PHP and started doing some freelance web development to earn some extra money.
I started off doing very basic projects just to gain experience. PSD to HTML conversions and that sort of thing – adding some jQuery to websites and thinking I was the greatest (we have all been there).
After my time of full time employment as an Electronic Engineer I had a few realisations.
- I didn’t like having a boss that wouldn’t let me do all the cool things I wanted to do.
- My real skill set lay in code.
It was at that point that I started getting more serious with the freelance web work I was doing. I was filling my day with doing projects for clients and reading and learning about all the latest technologies and news.
In my spare time I would still tinker with other programming projects, trying to get as much exposure to as wide array of langauges and technology stacks as possible.
The (Hungry Turtle) Code Life.
Things were going great. I was learning a ton. This is where another part of my life intersects with this.
I have always enjoyed teaching people things, ever since I was very young. I didn’t always get it right, but I enjoyed the process. I became the “go to” guy when people wanted things explaining to them.
As I grew older, my ability to explain (apparently) improved. When people started hearing more and more about my professional life with code they started asking questions.
It was then a natural extension to just create a site to start teaching some of the things I knew. The more I thought about it, the more I really liked the idea.
I get to learn things and teach those things to others. It was a win win all round. I love it.
The added bonus is that I may be able to make a small amount of money to maintain the longevity of the site through donations from you wonderful people. This allows me to keep all the content on here free so everyone in the world has the opportunity to learn this amazing and liberating art / science of code.
But where does the name Hungry Turtle come from?
Honestly, I have no idea. It just came to me one day when I was thinking of names. All I knew is I didn’t want to fall into the trap of looking “hipster” or “corporate”.
I certainly didn’t want a name like “Codrr” or something like that. I wanted something that was catchy and stuck out without fitting into some stereotype.
Hungry is also a nice word to use in an educational context as it implies desire and that is what sums up my aims for myself and everyone who uses this site.
Plus, Turtles are AMAZING!
Feel free to follow me on social media, I try to be as active as possible.
I like to engage in conversation, so don’t be shy.
Adrian