

Ask HN: Who IS in the software industry or a hacker? - junto

I found the earlier post for non-devs and non-hackers fascinating: https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8154625<p>I thought it would interesting to have another thread which is the opposite.<p>So what type of software developer &#x2F; hacker are you? What kind of company do you work for? How did you start off in the industry? What new technologies do you want to learn next?
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mindcrime
_So what type of software developer / hacker are you? What kind of company do
you work for? How did you start off in the industry? What new technologies do
you want to learn next?_

I've been developing software for a living since 2000, and before that I was
working in IT since about 1995. I started out doing a lot of network admin
(Netware 3.1 anybody?) and AS/400 operations stuff while I was still in
school. I dabbled in programming when I was a kid (8-9-10'ish or so) but we
never had a PC in my home, so I never got deep into programming until college.
I took a programming class in college about 1992 and was immediately hooked. I
bought a copy of Herbert Schildt's _Teach Yourself C_ , downloaded a shareware
C compiler from somewhere, acquired a cheap PC and have basically never looked
back.

Over my career I've mainly worked in Java, with some C/C++ before that, and
now do a lot of Java and Groovy stuff. I've also worked with Visual Basic a
bit a long time ago, and with Python a bit circa 2008-2009 or so. More
recently I have some ambition to learn R, Prolog, Go, Clojure, Scala, Julia
and a handful of other stuff that's on my "learn one day" list.

What kind of company do I work for? By day I work for Open Software
Integrators[1], a boutique professional services firm in Durham NC, where we
focus on helping companies apply "Big Data" technologies. One of my most
recent projects was building a Hadoop data warehouse for a big pharma company
that was doing some _really_ cool stuff that I'm pretty sure I'm not allowed
to talk about (non-disclosure agreements and what-not).

By night and weekend I work on a startup called Fogbeam Labs[2]. We are
focused on applying Semantic Web tech, social networking, machine learning and
related tech to create a kick-ass Open Source organizational knowledge
management / collaboration system.

And like (many|most|some|???) hackers, I am also generally interested in tech
beyond programming. I am a member of the local hackerspace in Durham[3], and I
dabble in various things there. I've been learning to do some embedded /
microcontroller stuff with Arduino, rPi, Beaglebones, etc., building
electronic circuits from discrete components, started on building a coil-gun
(but have kinda let that go dormant lately), and I have a goal to build a
Mantis PCB mill at some point. I'd also like to build a 3D printer (maybe a
rep-rap) someday.

I did dabble in the "black hat" hacking scene a bit back in the mid 90's, but
was really more into phone phreaking stuff. My claim to fame from that phase
of my life is that me and a couple of friends had admin level access to a
phone switch owned by the local telco (I think it was a DMS-100) for a while.
But by the late 90's I was getting into my professional career and it was
becoming obvious that playing in that world was a fast path to either jail or
at least a big hit to my career so I dropped out of that scene pretty much
completely. I mean, yeah, I still read 2600 and Phrack every now and again,
but that's about it.

[1]: [http://www.osintegrators.com](http://www.osintegrators.com)

[2]: [http://www.fogbeam.com](http://www.fogbeam.com)

[3]: [http://www.splatspace.org](http://www.splatspace.org)

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junto
I'm a .NET developer working on contract, predominantly in the insurance
industry. I do some client support and business analysis as well.

If I had more free time I'd learn node.is and properly get to grips with JS
client side frameworks like Angular and Ember.

Computer Science BSc is my academic background.

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jagawhowho
.net developer by day. Don't have the time to hack after work. Girlfriend and
family time.

When I'm able I tinker with emacs, js2-mode, and skewer. It's fun to hack
JavaScript in emacs.

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junto
The earlier I conversation for non-devs for reference:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8154625](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8154625)

