I love the diversity of our users. We’ve featured prior user stories with developers who first learned to program using [FORTRAN](/blog/komodo-ide-user-story-q-and-a-with-ron-stewart) or [BASIC](/blog/komodo-ide-user-story-q-and-a-with-gregg-thomason/). Today’s story features a Komodo user on the opposite end of that spectrum. Sergey (aka defman) is a 16 year old programmer who just started programming two years ago. He loves Komodo and is even a community moderator on the Komodo forums. (We’ve also come to the conclusion that he’s Nathan’s number one fan.) His enthusiasm for Komodo is infectious and I hope you enjoy his story as much as we did!
**How did you get into programming?**
I started programming when I did my first Informatics lesson. I wanted to create a personal website and I started doing some research on it (I was a 14 years old at the time). I found programming interesting and that’s how I started.
Currently I’m developing some Python/JS projects, some of them are related to Komodo (like KomodoLocaleGen, KSFEdtior), some of them are not (currently I’m working on a bot for Twitch chats).
**How did you first hear about Komodo and what do you use it for?**
Once I started creating some programs, I was looking for a good IDE that could help me. Somewhere on the Internet I saw a screen of a program called “Komodo IDE”, so I found it and downloaded the free version of Komodo (“Komodo Edit”) and started learning what this thing can do.
I realized that Komodo was much better than Notepad++, and after 5 days of learning Komodo I finally moved on it. I have been using Komodo for two years and I really like it. I’m using it every day, and I run it first in my regular apps list.
I use Komodo for writing the code and debugging it. I have a lot of projects that need to be debugged every day and Komodo is doing it perfectly! If you want to see what things I already did with Komodo, just visit my GitHub page and look at the repositories: every repository was created with Komodo. [https://github.com/Defman21?tab=repositories](https://github.com/Defman21?tab=repositories)
**Do you use Komodo’s polyglot (i.e. multi-language) functionality?**
I use the polyglot functionality because I work with PHP, Python, Ruby, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, HTML5 and CSS3 every day. Most of the time I’m working with Python, PHP and CoffeeScript code.
**What do you like about Komodo 9?**
I really like Komodo 9. When I switched from Komodo 8 to Komodo 9, I was very surprised about Komodo’s speed. It’s faster than Sonic the Hedgehog! CodeIntel, UX, code formatters and the debugger are the biggest strengths of Komodo in my opinion. These features are why I use Komodo. They rock!
CodeIntel, calltips, auto-complete popups – everything helps me in writing the code. The debugger helps me finding some bugs and memory leaks (Code Profiler is what I use when I debug Python programs).
**Are there any programmers that you admire?**
I admire Nathan Rijksen – he’s my personal “UX Jesus”. I really like what he’s doing with Komodo’s UX. It looks like a super-modern IDE. Sometimes I’m forgetting that I’m using a powerful IDE, not just a text editor – it looks so comfortable and simple for me! There are no distracting things in the interface, everything looks very elegant.
Also I want to mention @ervumlens – he’s doing some great things for Komodo and I really like his add-ons!
**Any other feedback you’d like to share?**
I want to say BIG THANKS to the Komodo developers for creating such an amazing IDE! Komodo is my favorite IDE and I will never change to another. I love the community, the developers and all the other people I haven’t mentioned, but who are related to Komodo in some way. And I’m glad that I can help you guys in creating Komodo Edit because it’s open source!
