Excerpt: The name isn’t random. It’s a tribute to the man who taught me that curiosity is a tool, and that you can fix anything if you’re willing to take it apart first.
People ask about the name. “Tinkers Workbench” sounds like a maker space or a hardware store, not a developer portfolio. That’s kind of the point.
The Shop Out Back
My grandfather, everyone calls him Tinker, has a shop in his backyard. Not a fancy one. Just a concrete floor, some pegboard walls, and every tool you could think of hanging where it’s supposed to be.
That shop is where I first learned to hammer a nail into a board. Where I learned to use a shovel, and apparently dug a hole so good he still trips in it to this day. Where I learned that cat litter cleans up oil spills, that you’re supposed to squint and grit your teeth when you’re pulling a wrench really hard, and that if you throw rocks onto the roof enough times, you’re going to get your butt whipped.
I ended up having to climb up there once to get them all off. They’re still there. I didn’t get them all.
Built on Their Shoulders
My dad carried it forward. He’s always been good with cars. Painting, mechanical work, the whole thing. He taught me a lot. His dad taught him. My uncles are mechanics. There’s a whole lineage of people in my family who look at something broken and think “I can fix that” instead of “I should call someone.”
That’s the thing about growing up around people who tinker. You don’t just learn how to use a wrench. You learn that everything has an inside, and the inside is worth understanding. You learn that you can break something open, figure out how it works, and put it back together. Sometimes better than it was.
From Wrenches to Code
Coding isn’t that different from what I learned in that shop. You’re still taking things apart. You’re still figuring out how the pieces connect. You’re still squinting and gritting your teeth when something won’t cooperate.
The tools changed. Wrenches became text editors, engines became APIs, oil spills became production bugs. But the curiosity is the same. The willingness to open something up and see what’s inside is the same. I don’t think I’d have that without my grandfather and my dad showing me, over and over, that you don’t have to be afraid of how things work.
Yes, It’s Also a Video Game Thing
If you’re a gamer, the name probably rang a bell. In Terraria, the Tinkerer’s Workshop is a crafting station where you combine accessories into more powerful versions of themselves. You take separate pieces, merge them together, and get something better than the sum of its parts. In Fallout 4 and Fallout 76, the Tinker’s Workbench is where you mod your gear, craft ammo, and build things from scrap.
Honestly, the parallel writes itself. Taking components apart, combining them into something new, building from raw materials. Whether it’s my grandfather’s shop, a crafting station in Terraria, or a React component tree, it’s all the same instinct. Break it open. See how it works. Make it better.
I didn’t name the site after the games. But I’m not mad about the overlap.
The Name
Tinker is my grandfather’s nickname. The workbench is where he taught me to be curious. This site, this whole thing, is built from that. It’s a developer portfolio, yeah. But in a roundabout way, it’s built from him, through generations, all the way to a screen full of Comic Sans and neon pink.
He’d probably look at this site and say something like “what the hell is that.” And then he’d ask me how I made it. And I’d show him. Just like he showed me.
This post is part of the Tinkers Workbench blog. If you want to know what I build with, check out The Stack I Use and Why. If you want to know why the site looks like this, read Why I Built a Portfolio in Comic Sans.