my limited computing experience

I was interested in computers as a kid, but presumed the correct time to study programming was in college, so I did not do much before. The college I got into was no good for programming, so I studied other things. When I got to the commercial job market, after a brief detour through a track-two diplomatic think-tank, my priority was to learn commerce in general, not programming. At my first commercial job, I got to study spreadsheet software, and since it was so familiar to my interests from years before, I wanted to learn more about software usage in commerce. 

Within about 1.5 years I had quit my second commercial job, because there were not enough programming opportunities. My bosses at the investment bank were probably quite disappointed with me. After three more years of working at various zero-to-one companies, I finally had exposure to Linux and HTTP. By this time, it was five years after graduation, and I had about 2.5 years of cumulative programming work experience between 2003 and 2010. I was 27.

Including a sabbatical, by 2015 I had about 4.0 years of programming experience. Then I ran a cafe until 2020, where I did a bit more programming for operations, but the overall project did not work out. 2021 and 2022 were spent on two concurrent corporate jobs where I taught computing and governance to younger people. By then I had about 5.0 years of programming experience, and I was 39. Then I began what has turned into an attempt, at a decade sabbatical.

I wrote this to try and figure out exactly how to compare myself to other people. It feels like I live very slowly.

merit

So, in case you're a social media troll. You'll notice that one ontological device is "deservance", "worthiness", "merit", for example, "I deserve a generous woman" ... now what you need to analyse is :

1. is the speaker using this as a rhetorical ask, in negotiation and advertisement, or

2. do they actually believe in a fairy tale of universal karma ( whether or not they coherently qualify under their own precepts, is a deeper question to be skipped over for now )

?

It's fairly easy to answer. You just have to watch and aee how mad they get. 

Tolerable Failure Rates

 My comfortable failure rate in work is about 75%, which is to say that at least 25% of my work has to be productive enough to make up for that amount of failure. The definition of a hard project is where the 25%-win isn't sufficient to pay off the 75%-lose rate, and of course, one then has to adjust.

For cold sales, of course there isn't a great deal of control one has, so I am comfier with higher rates of failure. For things like swipey dating apps, a common swipe conversion rate for guys is 0.3% or 1:300, and this is just conversion to the next hurdle, not final conversion!

For technical work, it's a matter of "is this something I know how to do/fix, or not". When I'm working by myself, for months and years on end, it is common to be sad or depressed ( within completely manageable levels ) for long periods, as there are no options to acquire support.

I have enjoyed my time on earth, involved in work at various levels of risk. I feel rewarded just to have these rare opportunities, which others don't seem to have or which they cannot tolerate.