I recently guested the CodePub podcast, hosted by a close friend of mine – Darko Bozhinovski. We talk about my start with computers and programming, programming languages, my previous and current interests, hackerspaces, etc. Make sure to check it out! 🙂
Summary:
Started with video games, with two key highlights:
- Feel privileged to have access to computers, thanks to my dad.
- Genuine curiosity for things, try to understand how/why they work.
The first game I remember playing was called Crystal Caves from Apogee Software. Natural progression from video games to programming:
- Tackling crackers and trainers combined with chiptunes felt magical, so I was interested in how these things work. Learned a lot from the EFnet network (Iczelion x86 asm), genuine curiosity kicks in.
- Started with BASIC at an early age, attended competitive programming in high school (Pascal), and got a good grasp of algorithms (a finite sequence of instructions). A good book is “Guide to Competitive Programming”.
Knowledge:
- Mostly self-taught. Most of my knowledge can be attributed to my parents – we had an internet cafe for 11 years and learned a lot there.
- I was bad at most school subjects except for mathematics and informatics. I was lucky, since all of my grades were “fixed”, allowing me to spend more time studying for the competitions (this improved the school’s image :))
Work experience:
- Started working professionally in 2010 (no university degree at the time) for an outsourcing company, working with Java/C#/Python/etc.
- Second job at a startup, doing R&D.
- Currently working at Automattic for 6+ years. Freedom to implement/apply processes, bringing order to chaos.
- First 4 years mostly product work, got a good grasp of our products.
- Now working as a DevEx engineer interviewing/hiring applicants, mentoring engineers, creating/applying/tweaking processes.
- Learned how to communicate better, evaluate engineer qualities such as research, and documentation, ask them the right questions, etc. Doing less actual programming and more stuff about programming (stepping back on a meta-level)
- In my understanding, DevEx brings employees closer to the company’s culture, like a tourist guide.
Sabbatical 2022:
- Three months paid time off at Automattic. Longest period away from computers was one or two weeks before the sabbatical.
- While on sabbatical I stopped using computers after a few weeks and used the opportunity to step back and think/reflect, which provided for a very valuable experience (started reading more philosophy)
- Spending more time drinking beers and philosophizing with friends.
- Spending a little time traveling to France/Greece with my family was valuable as my family is my biggest source of energy.
Programming languages:
- Haskell made the connection between math and programming clear.
- Playing with other different languages as a hobby (Idris, Scheme), comparing solutions written in different languages.
- Implemented Budge-PL and Budge-TP as inspiration from FRACTRAN and Prolog/Metamath.
KIKA hacklab is special to me because it’s a place where you meet with a lot of different people that are hobbyists like yourself, having the freedom to express yourself i.e. artistic version of paid programming.
Authoring books:
- Gentle Introduction to Dependent Types with Idris in 2018. This was my first book. It was self-published using Amazon KDP, a lot of freedom but at the same time have to find people to help with reviews/feedback. Already had content from the blog and compiled them in a natural order.
- Introducing Blockchain with Lisp wrote a book based on a hobby project I did while vacating in Greece during the blockchain hype.
- Introducing Software Verification with Dafny as a result of my Master’s thesis research.
After acquiring a Master’s degree in Informatics, decided to work as a part-time teaching assistant for several months in 2022 to get a feel of what it is like to work in Academia.
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