Greetings from D-Mack!
I own a small shop specializing in custom website design based in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
I have been dabbling in various CMS programs for the past several years but only 'discovered' Joomla! in early 2004. I really don't know how I got along without it, and quite frankly, don't think I will ever design another site without wonderful Joomla!
Ever since I can remember I have always had some sort of obsession with 'how things worked'. I would take apart toys, electronics, you name it, examine them and then try to put them back together again and see if they still worked. I guess that's how I got started in Joomla! extensions development.
I basically began by downloading a few extensions that looked interesting, but they either didn't quite do what I needed or had some styling issues that had to be adjusted. So I started taking things apart again! That was basically how my first extension came to be - the RecommendFriends v1.0.0 Component for Joomla! 1.0.1x. I took a few ideas from a couple of non-commercial components, mixed in a lot of my own ideas, and turned it into a highly configurable component.
One of the biggest challenges we encounter - and have managed to conquered so far - is to retool our extensions to be compatible with newer versions of Joomla! First there was Joomla! 1.5, then 1.6, 1.7, 2.5. 3.x and now Joomla! 4.x. Needless to say there were steep learning curves jumping from 1.7 to 2.5 then 3.x and now above 4.x. Trying to figure out all the changes and specific coding required for the new Joomla! framework(s) was not easy! But we persisted and conquered but hopefully the current framework will last for a couple years anyway (fingers crossed).
We will continue to develop extensions and are always open to suggestions. So if you have any ideas of something you think is 'missing' please drop us a line!
Peace,
D-Mack