Ten years ago I began learning how to create dynamic websites. I had previously played around with HTML and had been programming using mainly BASIC and Visual Basic for several years. Some of my first computers included an Amstrad CPC 464, a ZX Spectrum, Acorn Electron and various others on which I learnt BASIC and I learnt Visual Basic during my AS Level studies.

I was in my second year of sixth form at Carshalton Boys Sports College1 when some fellow students and I had an idea for a website dedicated to quotations.

I decided to build the site so I bought a copy of Larry Ullman's PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Websites to learn how to build websites using PHP and MySQL. I learnt enough from tutorials and the book to be able to build the site which was completed in February 2004. I later submitted the website as part of my A Level coursework and at the end of my time as a student at CBSC I redeveloped the school's website which I continued to develop and maintain while doing my undergraduate degree.

The website, quote.whoyouknow.co.uk, is still live and it's a reminder of how bad at PHP programming I was when I first began using it! It's badly structured spaghetti code with PHP mixed with HTML and SQL - not great, but it worked.

Since then I've completed an MSci Computer Science degree and received my PhD in Computer Science but I am still doing web programming - I now work for a company where the main language we use is PHP.

• 1. I didn't like sports, it was renamed from Carshalton High School for Boys after I had already been there several years!