My study of computer languages

I studied programming, mostly after college.

Without getting into specific rejections, I think it was formative to find that business leaders would always be more keen than technical leaders ... to hire someone to learn technical skills on the job. The net result of these experiences is that most of my programming experience was developed in my own time, at my own expense.

It's been interesting, going from VisualBasic, to spreadsheets, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, Erlang, Haskell, Docker, Ruby, and recently on to Shell Command Language. That's been about ... 6-7 FTE years spread out over an 18 year period.

- Being a generalist, I'm probably most knowledgeable about spreadsheets ( in-cell array syntax is rarely discussed, but quite functional in application ).

- Having spent some time in web, I learnt nearly every language feature of JavaScript around 2020 - no one should care ... as it is a really horrible organic language, though not as bad as SCL.

- Erlang is probably my favourite language and runtime. 

- I will probably never make time to learn Haskell properly, as I should be moving to C within that level of concern.

- I will probably try to keep abreast of web, since it grows not too quickly and is still a nexus of the ecosystem ... my fun-allocation is currently figuring out how small a codebase is needed to write a reference implementation that covers as much of the web spec as possible.

On Time

Time is a curious thing. When I began independent studies around 2003, it was pretty easy to bag low-hanging fruit, because the gaps in the syllabus were pretty clear.

After 22 years, it takes a lot more focus to dig into niche areas. Here's how my time is going.

A typical study day is 8 hours down, 16 hours up - I prefer 10 down, 14 up, or even an irregular 10 down per 16 up, but whatever. Main interruptions to study are food ( prep, consumption, cleanup ), and bits of physical resistance for dopamine - each of these happens about half a dozen times a day.

It take a few days to switch context into new subjects, without disturbing unstable memories from prior studies. So to minimise context-switching I don't do normal weeks either, rather I move all the down time to the beginning of the month, and take a week away from mainstream study. During that week I do chores, more rest, and peripheral projects which would require a huge context switch during mainstream studies.

Over the years my projects have ranged from two to ten years in forward planning. The current project is for ten years only, and I have done that before.

Dating in 2025

Unpopular opinion : dating in 2025 is way better than it was in 2008. 

The dating environment is richer. Standards are higher for both men and women. Mainstream marketing of high-end products makes it easy for shoppers to point to what they like instead of arm-waving. Yes, social media is now mainstream. I'm sorry if you don't like being a product. The product is now hiply quantified in terms of mental health, material economics, etc. These axes were more opaque before.

If you're feeling left out, it's just a matter of getting your game together. Social scientists have noticed that younger people think it's normal to date less and prep more. I'm really enjoying the future, because the past sucked pretty bad.