Hi there! Welcome to my personal programming web-page. My name is Derek Wood and
I am an IT Professional. I started programming in Fall of 2002 while studying
Computer Science. However, I did have some prior knowledge of HTML and it's components
since I began coding webpages in 1998.
My first programming language was Java. It was a hard choice to choose between starting with
Java or starting with C++. Both languages have their benefits, but programmers
who choose one, despise the other. I personally have no preference. Java really
got me into programming. I found it fun and exciting, even on my own personal
time. I enjoyed programming so much at the time that during Christmas break I started to teach
myself a new language, Visual Basic.
The reason I chose Visual Basic is because I wanted to write a program referred to as a bot client.
The program would connect to a server for chatting use and act some-what as a sub-computer. The
user could chat with it personally or configure it for others to use for channel control and
other useful features. A lot of the available open source code for bot clients were in Visual
Basic and fellow friends online also programmed in it as well, leaving me many helpful resources.
I spent many long nights programming my bot and learning the code. To some people, this might be
considered labor, but I considered it fun and relaxing. Your mind escapes and everything around
you is no longer apparent.
I decided to name my program FyReBoT, since my internet alias has been FyRe since around 1998.
During the creation of FyReBoT I took classes on C++ and Assembly (ASM). I would say that Assembly was
my least favorite programming language to use. The FyReBoT Project was renamed in August 2004
because of fellow programmer's project FiReBoT being so similar. The public often would confuse one for
the other leaving too many difficulties. So the program was renamed, FyreChat. A title more aimed
as its purpose since it had lost some of its features which made it a bot. FyreChat has since been retired
with the possibility of be resurrected in the future.
All the time I spent studying and learning programming has assisted me in my day to day tasks
working with systems and it will always be that occasional hobby for me.
Thanks for reading the introduction to my personal "programming" web-page.
Disclaimer: On this site you will find projects and random code bits that I have written.
All source code is of my own and may be used freely at your own use.
I hold no responsibility for the files on this site. Download at your own risk.