Everyone has a "first project."
Mine was Eye Vision—an e-commerce optical shop built with PHP, vanilla JavaScript, and prayers. It worked. Barely. And it taught me everything about how not to build software.
The Spaghetti Era (2022)
Picture this: A single index.php file with 2,000 lines. No framework. No routing library. Just this:
<?php
if ($_GET['page'] == 'products') {
include 'products.php';
} elseif ($_GET['page'] == 'cart') {
include 'cart.php';
} elseif ($_GET['page'] == 'checkout') {
include 'checkout.php';
} else {
include 'home.php';
}
// ... 47 more elseifs
?>
Authentication? $_SESSION['logged_in'] = true; (Security experts, please look away.)
Database queries? Inline SQL with string concatenation. I was one misplaced quote away from deleting the entire database.
$query = "SELECT * FROM products WHERE id = " . $_GET['id'];
// SQL injection speedrun any%
Did it work? Yes.
Did I learn? Absolutely.
Would I show the source code in a job interview? I would rather eat glass.
The Awakening (Late 2022)
I transferred to Bulacan State University, and something clicked.
I met developers who talked about things like:
- Separation of concerns (apparently, views and logic shouldn't be the same file?)
- ORMs (wait, you mean I don't have to write raw SQL?)
- Component-based architecture (one file per feature? Revolutionary!)
I discovered React. Then I discovered that React was "old news" and everyone was using Next.js.
So I learned that too.
The Transition Stages
Looking back, my journey followed a predictable pattern:
Stage 1: Denial
"PHP is fine. Laravel exists. Modern PHP is good actually. Why is everyone obsessed with hydration? I drink enough water."
Stage 2: Anger
"Why does simple form validation require 3 libraries and a schema builder? It's just a text input!"
Stage 3: Bargaining
"Maybe I'll use React but keep the PHP backend. A Frankenstein architecture. It'll be fine." (Narrator: It was not fine.)
Stage 4: Depression
"I have spent 4 hours configuring Webpack. I have written 0 lines of code. I hate computers."
Stage 5: Acceptance
"Okay. Next.js. TypeScript. Tailwind. I accept my fate. At least the autocomplete is nice."
Did You Know?
Trivia: The average developer learns 3-5 frameworks before settling on one they actually like. I went through jQuery, Vue, React, and briefly considered Svelte before committing to Next.js. The Svelte experiment lasted exactly 3 days.
The Magna Cum Laude Grind
I won't pretend the transition was easy.
During my final year at BulSU, I was:
- Learning Next.js on YouTube at 2x speed
- Building freelance projects with technologies I'd learned that week
- Maintaining Dean's List grades
- Sleeping approximately 4 hours per night
The result? Magna Cum Laude and a portfolio that proved I could build production-grade applications.
But honestly? The real education happened in the gaps between classes. In the pull request reviews. In the "why doesn't this work at 3 AM" debugging sessions.
The SOFI.AI Turning Point
My internship at SOFI AI Tech Solution Inc. changed everything.
For the first time, I was building software that mattered. AI chatbots that handled real customer queries. Systems that processed thousands of messages daily.
They gave me three certifications:
- Developer Intern
- QA Tester Intern
- Full Stack Web Developer
But the real certification was confidence. I learned that I could walk into a room with senior developers and contribute.
What PHP Taught Me
Here's the thing: I don't regret the PHP days.
That spaghetti code taught me:
- Why abstractions exist. You don't appreciate MVC until you've lived without it.
- How HTTP actually works.
$_GETand$_POSTaren't magic—they're form submissions. - The value of debugging. When there's no framework error page, you learn to read stack traces.
Every Next.js app I build is better because I remember the chaos that came before.
Where I Am Now
Today, I architect systems at Medianeth. I integrate AI. I optimize for Core Web Vitals. I write TypeScript that would make my 2022 self cry tears of joy.
But every few months, I pull up the Eye Vision repository.
Not to cringe (okay, a little to cringe).
But to remember that everyone starts somewhere. And that somewhere doesn't have to be pretty.
If you're reading this and you're still in the spaghetti phase: Keep going. The seniors around you? They have their own index.php files buried in private repos.
We all do.
