i'm just having fun

i work professionally on a compiler and write about build systems in my free time and as a result people often say things to me like "reading your posts points to me how really smart you are" or "reading a lot of this shit makes me feel super small". this makes me quite uncomfortable and is not the reaction i'm seeking when i write blog posts.

it's not a competition

i mean, in some sense if you work as a professional programmer it is a competition, because the job market sucks right now. but i think usually when people say they feel dumb, it's not in the sense of "how am i supposed to get a job when jyn exists" but more "jyn can do things i can't and that makes me feel bad".

you can do hard things

all the things i know i learned by experimenting with them, or by reading books or posts or man pages or really obscure error messages. sometimes there's a trick to it but sometimes it's just hard work. i am not magic. you can learn these things too.

everyone has their own area of specialization

if you don't want to spend a bunch of time learning about how computers work, you don't have to! not knowing about gory computer internals does not make you dumb or computer illiterate or anything. everyone has their own specialty and mine is compilers and build systems. i don't know jack shit about economics or medicine! having a different specialty than me doesn't mean you're dumb.

i really hate that computing and STEM have this mystique in our society. to the extent that engineering demonstrates intelligence, it's by repeatedly forcing you to confront the results of your own mistakes, in such a way that errors can't be ignored. there are lots of ways to do that which don't involve programming or college-level math! performance art and carpentry and running your own business or household all force you to confront your own mistakes in this way and deserve no less respect than STEM.

if i can't feminize my compiler, what's the point?

by and large, when i learn new things about computers, it's because i'm fucking around. the fucking around is the point. if all the writing helps people learn and come up with cool new ideas, that's neat too.

half the time the fucking around is just to make people say "jyn NO". half the time it's because i want to make art with my code. i really, sincerely, believe that art is one of the most important uses for a computer.

i'm not doing this for the money. i happened to get very lucky that my passion pays very well, but i got into this industry before realizing how much programmers actually make, and now that i work for a european company i don't make US tech salaries anyway. i do it for the love of the game.

some extracts from the jyn computer experience:

my advice

you really shouldn't take advice from me lol

however! if you are determined to do so anyway, what i can do is point you towards:

places to start fucking around and finding out

highest thing i can recommend is building a tool for yourself. maybe it's a spreadsheet that saves you an hour of work a week. maybe it's a little website you play around with. maybe it's something in RPGmaker. the exact thing doesn't matter, the important part is that it's fun and you have something real at the end of it, which motivates you to keep going even when the computer is breaking in three ways you didn't even know were possible.

second thing i can recommend is looking at things other people have built. you won't understand all of it and that's ok. pick a part of it that looks interesting and do a deep dive on how it works.

i can recommend the following places to look when you're getting started:

• Mozilla Development Network
• Arch Wiki
• StackOverflow
• alice maz, "how I think when I think about programming"

most importantly, remember: