Hello World! I’m deman and I think I’m a parentheses addict…
How I got here. I’ve been a linux nerd for 20+ years, started with Slackware and hopped through a multitude of distros (most of them of the “make your life harder” type) Gentoo, Arch (before it was cool btw), Tumbleweed, Silverblue, Nixos. Nixos idea felt cool, but while I was able to create a “good enough” system it never felt “home”. Then I discovered Guix and scheme /lisps and got hooked. For me it has more diy punk rock kind of vibe, community while smaller is much more relatable (or at least feels like it, which is good enough) and I love the elegance of lisps syntax. As a European I like that it is a EU based project (and not being funded by skynet is a nice bonus)
Hello! I’m clearly getting old (30 years in the software industry) because I somehow deleted my original introduction. Haven’t done an rm -rf like that in a while, so it gave me a chuckle
I’ve mostly been in release management and quality assurance in my career (with some sysadmin sprinkled in for seasoning) and GNU Emacs on GNU/Linux has been the one constant.
Writing tools has always been part of the job description, though I never considered myself a programmer. Since the majority of my gigs have had security layers, I never bothered with an active public presence or published code. I’ve always been more of a “Milton” (Office Space) but as I near retirement, I’m getting out a bit. I made a career through my FOSS experience and always knew I’d give back somehow.
I found this community through the folks who started it, all associated with projects I’ve followed over the years. While I never fully embraced GNU Guix, it’s importance can’t be understated. I tried for a time to make a bootable Emacs system on Mach but work took most of my time. When GNU Guix came out I was impressed and saw immediately where it was going. I’m an Emacs Lisp guy, myself, but: Respect.
I’m slowly getting small projects up on Codeberg and trying to follow good standards. I’ve been described as phrenetic when it comes to how I approach technology and tool writing, but I am trying. I’m here to learn.
Good to be here, and cheers to all the System Crafters!
