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Rust, Web Servers, and More!
August 24th, 2020
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I've been working on the Rustlings course to learn Rust. I haven't
done any propper programming since high school. In my
junior/senior year I took an ROP programming class where we
learned VISUAL BASIC. This was just before smart phones became a
thing. I think the idea was that VB would be a "practical" skill
for graduates looking for jobs; that is, apparently, developing
POS software for people taking pizza orders over the phone, etc.
Our final project was to make a simple game. I was very ambitious,
and attempted to recreate Megaman. Ultimately, it was not a game.
But I was able to animate the sprites and control the movement of
Megaman himself.
For many years I didn't own my own computer. I kept all my files
on flash drives I would access on friends' computers or at the
library. I was moving around a lot---traveling, wandering, and
studying. My "schooling" had nothing to do with computers; at
least not directly. I didn't even own a cell phone until everyone
was already starting to use SMART ones. I was out of the loop for
quite some time. I eventually acquired old netbooks that "didn't
work," and rehabilitated them with Xubuntu and other lightweight
Linux distros. It became a kind of hobby---giving old hardware
new life. I was, however, a very casual user for the most part.
I enjoyed tinkering, but I was not a programmer. I learned to
write basic shell scripts, setup LANs, etc., but whatever I did
with a computer relied entriely on the software working as
expected. If something went wrong, I didn't have the knowledge
enough to even ask the right questions or start looking in the
right direction for answers.
Over the past few years, I have become a little more discerning
about technology and the way I use it. This is partly due to the
fact that I had time to delve into little computer-related side
quests, and I had some decent equipment for the journey. I
rediscovered a deep interest in computers I've had since I first
laid hands on one when I was six years-old. This was partly
motivated by necessity, too, however. I was disillusioned to the
impact firms like Google and Facebook have on society and
democracy. In an ongoing effort to seek out alternatives to
these exploitative platforms, I started to allow myself fewer
conveniences, and began to appreciate the value of a more
hands-on, DIY approach to subsisting in the digital age.
So... here I am now. Trying to learn something new. My immediate
goals are to 1) learn Rust and 2) understand the basics of hosting
web services. I am not sure why Rust appealed to me, initially. I
think I was inspired to learn more about it because of some tools I
had used that were written in Rust. That led me to discoveries
about intersting projects like Servo and Redox.
Ultimately, I'd like to have a solid enough understanding of
system administration and hosting/developing web services so that
I can 1) use and develop the interesting tools I enjoy to teach
university courses and 2) to promote free software and tech
collectives of various forms here in Korea. It's in ongoing
learning process! Right now I have just a Raspberry Pi 4 that I
use to run experiments. Lurking around the tildeverse has taught
me a lot! I've only been here a few days, but I've gleaned a
little perspective on what sort of questions I should be asking
to carry my projects further.
I'm really intrigued by the idea of tildes, and once I finish
my current research project, I anticipate expanding upon it to
examine tildes and libre tech collectives in general. More on
that another day, though~
