Hi there! I'm Johnathan Verstraaten, a 15 year old Christian home-schooler with a strong passion for programming. I'm currently doing freelance web development and web design.
I'm half Dutch and half Ghanaian, born in The Netherlands. I currently live on a rubber plantation in Liberia, and have lived in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and The Netherlands before that.
I'm currently doing A-Levels in Mathematics, Computer Science, Biology and Chemistry.
Apart from coding, I enjoy keeping and taking care of animals, photography (especially wildlife and landscape photography), cooking, playing tennis, and will occasionally play the piano and play football (soccer).
I started programming in early 2020, at the age of 12. At the time, I was interested in Desktop Application and Game Development, so I started learning C++ using W3Schools.
Because I had no previous coding experience, learning C++ was difficult, so I later decided to go for something easier and started to learn HTML and CSS, transitioning from Game Development to Web Development.
Later, in 2021, I decided to take coding more seriously and added JavaScript to my skills, while also improving my CSS knowledge.
Early 2022, after having some decent knowledge in the 3 main frontend languages (HTML, CSS and JavaScript), I started learning PHP and SQL, to get into the server side of websites too. Later the same year I learnt the basics of Python, as part of IGCSE Computer Science.
I got my first freelance job in 2022, working on the JVKomplete site. It did take longer than it should have to complete the site, but I did learn a lot of new things while working on it.
This year, I started learning more modern web technologies, including Node.js, React.js, React Native and SCSS. I'm also learning more Python with A-Level Computer Science.
I'm currently focusing on Full Stack Web Development and UI/UX Design, mostly doing freelance work, but I hope to expand my skillset and learn Desktop and Mobile App Development, and possibly get into Game Development as well.