Started with PHP in like 2006, then JavaScript later when needed for freelance gigs as a pre-teen. To give an idea about the timeline, also had to do some ActionScript 3 (i.e. Adobe Flash) dev for my little projects at the time. Had a class in high school which used Java . Baby's first systems language was C , and I for sure learned more about computing from K&R than I ever had prior from any resource. Gave Go a go after C (never really used C for anything other than homework) to explore other options for low-level programming. Loved it, made some cool shit, and forgot how it works. Thinking about distributed systems got me obsessed with Erlang OTP for a hot minute there. Surely don't remember how that works now. Had to learn me some Haskell after my deep dive into Erlang, but never fully grasped it. Python I never really used much outside of doing homework, same with Java, but use them from time to time in code challenges and whatnot (like homework of friends who don't really want to learn programming, but enrolled in a class they can't afford to fail). Learned Processing to make things happen with my Arduino, then again to make things happen on my screen. Professionally for my day job, I now write C# , VB and SQL in addition to Web tech. It's a shame now, though, that the only languages I really know (as in, whose libraries and constructs are fresh in memory) are the ones I use at work. 🤦‍♂️

Proton and Mozilla are both great companies, so this is a cool partnership. But I use ProtonMail every day with a custom domain, and that tier of service comes with ProtonVPN at no added cost, so I would effectively be paying twice for the same thing to benefit Mozilla. Not unlike me, though, since I think I still have an active Pocket subscription which I very seldom use or even think about; it just quietly debits my bank account every other paycheck, but that's okay because Mozilla is pretty baller. I consider that subscription to be a monthly donation. All things considered, I don't see existing ProtonMail users like myself to be the ideal customers here. More likely just donate outright on a monthly basis, or perhaps buy some merchandise. Proton is also a very good company in terms of what they add to the field, so changing my active subscription to ProtonMail in order to benefit Mozilla wouldn't really do much for me as a giver.

~$3-4k for ajar.org , and I'm trying hard not to express interest in ajar.net after a year of intense spam from that Vince guy. I am proud of nothing.

Thanks so much, Francisco ! I am outlining my next post tonight, actually. Have been thinking about the topic for a while and am thrilled to have an outlet now to publish my ideas.

Thank you! I think you're right, so I'm on my prowl now. I've failed to follow up on several dozen calls and opportunities presented to me over the past couple years by recruiters working either at dedicated tech recruitment firms or local offices of major companies. Will admit that this is largely because I'm afraid of embarrassing myself during an interview, but that does go against a lot of what I said here... I'm for sure not a master programmer, but for certain positions that doesn't seem to be assumed. I've reached out to a few recruiters this week, just hope I haven't burned too many bridges with my cold feet. Thanks again for the push... 💖

I once was tasked to refactor a 10k+ line disorganized and effectively illegible series of Stored Procedures, much of which having originally been authored when I was nine years old (was 23 at the time). Some devs were pissed that it was practically impossible to ascertain exactly what I had done, with the left half of the diff fully red and the right half fully green. So at my day job, I try not to do that nowadays unless I really, really need to (for my own mental health and posterity's sake alike). Still doesn't go over well, especially since some of the code was written by active senior developers on the team who actually remember piecing it together over the past 16+ years. Smaller things I'll fix up on the spot, though.

Thank you for the guidance! I'll respond more fully after work, have to think on that first question a bit too... that does seem important. Cheers :-)

Brilliant. Wow, this is interesting! Not gonna lie, it's a little weird at first glance, will need to take it for a proper spin over the next few days. Either way, I feel like a million at least two hundred bucks. Thanks 1e6 for the tip, will update post with shots to compare. Kudos Gustavo Benedito Costa ✌

Very fond of Ayu Dark as it comes with Beautiful UI and especially Material Ocean High Contrast which I am using now. Depends on the screen since I change displays often for work, leisure, travel, etc. Samples follow (in order): However, I have been known to step over to the bright side from time to time. On these special occasions, I might be caught dead rocking Quiet Light . Used often at work and works out when I want to paste code into emails while keeping some formatting, but not the background. Also, if I feel tired because everything on my work laptop is dark and my job is boring, this lends to... keeping me up. All three of these check all my boxes. Had actually been a while since I thought about my theme, so I'm glad to have rediscovered an old favorite (namely, Material Ocean High Contrast). Colors are truly just on point . Material Icons for all themes (first screenshot does not show this, however), and the font used is the free and open-source Fira Code with ligaments in case you didn't recognize... Curious about other fonts that may fit nicely.

I realize that "market trends" (or soon-to-be trends) dictate that I should climb on the Rust bandwagon, but it lacks appeal to me. I've been re-learning Go most recently, as in actually working through projects with it and learning as I mess up. Also in my life currently, which rocks, is Elixir . I loooved, loved, loved working with Erlang in a large-scale content and media distribution and relay development back in 2010 or so, and I didn't realize Elixir fit into the same models / paradigms with OTP. Now looking at maybe playing with ReasonML , then I guess maybe OCaml by extension. That would just be for fun, though, I think. Haven't gotten far enough. I found this lang called Imba as well which I've also yet to pursue, and actually plan to post about it in a minute. Another really cool project that I am using in one of my current developments: Graql for GRAKN.AI . It's an extremely powerful graph knowledge base platform, similar in a lot of ways to Neo4j, but with some distinct traits that make it really fun to use. Huge aside: The Rust thing is weird to me. I remember several of my friends, back in the day, more or less just shitting all over it, at least one of whom is now a big proponent. Was around the time the Go spec was first released or began to enjoy wide use, so maybe the greater emphasis on a clean and simple syntax made Rust look like filth by comparison? Or did a lot of it change? Been wondering.