I've been kind of quiet since it's a semi-stressful time in my life. In corporate speak, I have a "negative cashflow situation."

I figured i'd use this time to better my skills and jump into something new and exciting. As a older kid I found programming to be really fun and did a tiny little bit of visual basic and some webdev stuff html/xml/css in my mid teens.

Trying to forge a new path but there are a ton of roads and paths to go down. (And all the paths are hard mode.) I meant to get into this a year ago but, fulltime work kept me from really doing anything farther. Now with this extra free time, I have an opportunity to re-evaluate things and grow. I haven't even gotten too far into it and I already feel like an imposter lol.

Edit: For those worried, don't worry, it's ok. I had planned for this for many years and figured i'd ride the gravy train until I got RiF'd or something. (Yay for foresight!) I should be ok for a while but I still need to draw up and implement a real plan.

@luvstiger I've never written a program from scratch, ever.

I'm done multiple, functional evidence based reverse engineering hobby work on computer programs that are pre-existing.

The first time was in my pre teens. The scope and actual "show your work" part of it has improved greatly. Did remote QA on the side in the mid 2010s, not long after turning 18.

I've lived over half my existence since making my first "practical" solution for a problem with a use case. To say I feel like an imposter in the world of programming can be interpreted as...

1. You're the best Among Us player ever to walk this earth

2. You have an insane talent at tackling issues without full context and somehow parse it all together in ways that make you an asset to people more applied, but often comparatively similar as far as neurodivergence and general unorthodox interests.

🙃​

@alittleodd oh my gosh this is encouraging. To me it looks like a big giant map covered with fog, and the more you learn the more fog gets cleared, the more lay of the land you get, and you can start to intuit when exploring unexplored lands.

@luvstiger literally yes

some of my favorite discoveries were only possible because I learned about something otherwise entirely different, but using the same concept or standard and using that applied learning makes things happen

honestly it kind of blows my mind how much I know about "what" software is doing, or being able to infer based on behavior before even looking at anything behind the curtain and being correct - being completely honest, on my end it translates outside of computers, I've become so self aware of my own deductive reasoning skills in the real world from making educated guesses, often about things that serve nobody except a fleeting hyperfixation that probably doesn't work out with program code.

A few years ago I kind of had an epiphany about how I passively became better and better at it (and still do) and it still blows my mind typing this message. 😂​