Fascinations

At some point in the last 20+ years, I have been an expert (or at least professionally proficient) in Golang, PHP, Python, Perl, Ruby, C#, VB.NET, Arduino C/C++, Classic ASP, PCRE (and other regex flavors), SQL (MySQL and MSSQL/T-SQL), Bash, BASIC, HTML, CSS, Javascript, Actionscript, Flex. I first learned to code in BASIC on a RadioShack/Tandy TRS-80 (circa 1979) that I bought at a thrift shop the age 13. Due to my rather humble beginnings, this was the best I could afford. »

It’s been a while since I spent any time thinking about frontend web development. Things have changed so much in HTML, CSS, Javascript and development paradigms that a modern codebase is almost unrecognizable from one that’s 10 years old. As I interview front-end candidates for a new position, I’m mostly hearing about the MERN stack (as well as MEAN and MEVN), however, I keep hearing the word “JAMstack” pop up in strange places. »

What is worse than inequality of outcome (ex: income inequality)? Inequality of opportunity is worse. For free-ish market capitalism to raise all boats, all people need to be able to compete on an equal playing field, to the extent possible. In reality, this is far from equal since wealthy people have an advantage here. But I’m not interested in making rich people poorer, I’m interested in making poor people richer. The bottom 5-10% of the wage-earners/wealth holders have so few opportunities that 9 of their 10 best career options might be illegal or self-destructive. »

When I was in high school I was the class clown. Growing up with depressed parents and attending multiple funerals (accidents, cancer, suicides, etc) before the age of 18 gave me plenty of reasons to doubt my purpose, and making people laugh (often at my own expense) was a major source of superficial entertainment for me. Underneath, however, was a festering emotional wreck that was failing to make sense of the world. »