My Journey in programming

Hey, I'm Łukasz, a 19-year-old Fullstack Developer. Two months ago, I left university, freeing myself from a system I’ve always despised. Before that, I spent two years working on BookFreak, an ambitious platform for book lovers that never saw the light of day. It was a failure—but one that taught me a lot. How It All Started ? I began coding in July 2022 when my English finally reached a level where I could follow courses. Before that, I struggled—reading a Polish JavaScript book six times without understanding a thing. That’s when I decided: programming should be learned in English. No translations. Just pure, direct knowledge. I started with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but I was a complete beginner. My CSS skills were laughable, and JavaScript felt like a foreign language. Just as I was making progress, school got in the way. My math teacher was a nightmare, pushing outdated, fear-based teaching methods. I ignored school subjects and focused on coding, but she made sure I paid the price. Eventually, my mother was called in, and I had no choice but to pause programming for a few months to secure passing grades. 2023 – The Year of Too Slow Growth In January 2023, I picked up React, finished a course by mid-February, and immediately started BookFreak. Initially, it was just a passion project—I wanted to create a space where readers could track progress, connect, and compete. Reading was never my thing, and I thought gamifying it could make a difference. Although the app is not released, you can checkout the projects, although the web-app is not finished and the mobile app doesn't work because of removal of the function call endpoints to Firebase and there is no more Stripe attached to this project: -

Mar 16, 2025 - 17:58

Hey, I'm Łukasz, a 19-year-old Fullstack Developer. Two months ago, I left university, freeing myself from a system I’ve always despised. Before that, I spent two years working on BookFreak, an ambitious platform for book lovers that never saw the light of day. It was a failure—but one that taught me a lot.

How It All Started ?

I began coding in July 2022 when my English finally reached a level where I could follow courses. Before that, I struggled—reading a Polish JavaScript book six times without understanding a thing. That’s when I decided: programming should be learned in English. No translations. Just pure, direct knowledge.

I started with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, but I was a complete beginner. My CSS skills were laughable, and JavaScript felt like a foreign language. Just as I was making progress, school got in the way. My math teacher was a nightmare, pushing outdated, fear-based teaching methods. I ignored school subjects and focused on coding, but she made sure I paid the price. Eventually, my mother was called in, and I had no choice but to pause programming for a few months to secure passing grades.

2023 – The Year of Too Slow Growth

In January 2023, I picked up React, finished a course by mid-February, and immediately started BookFreak. Initially, it was just a passion project—I wanted to create a space where readers could track progress, connect, and compete. Reading was never my thing, and I thought gamifying it could make a difference.

Although the app is not released, you can checkout the projects, although the web-app is not finished and the mobile app doesn't work because of removal of the function call endpoints to Firebase and there is no more Stripe attached to this project: