@dansup You’re no imposter to me! Keep up the amazing work!

@dansup Longitude. In the 17th Century, there was a prize for proof of a method for sailors and navigators to know how far east and west they'd travelled. Leading scientists of the day, including Isaac Newton, tried and failed.

The prize for succesful proof of a method to determine longitude was given to a clockmaker. He worked on the problem all his life and nearly died before proof was obtained. His son had to make the journey.

The master clockmaker managed to do what many educated people failed to do. He eventually devised a clock that would not be disrupted by the motion of the waves, as most pendulum clocks of the day would have suffered.

His clock, that won the prize, looked very much like a wind-up pocket watch. His innovation was to use a coil spring to power the watch instead of a pendulum.

Many people laughed at him for pursuing the prize that evaded the great minds of his day. He never went to college. A tradesman, he lacked the credentials distinguished people of his time had. Eveyone bet on them instead of him.

Yet his dilligent pursuit of knowledge of his craft, fueled by insatiable curiosity, drove him to achieve improvements in timekeeping until he discovered a method for exactly finding longitude that worked at sea.

Keep striving. Keep studying. Keep hacking.

@dansup Having even one manual labor job is a huge accomplishment. Post high-school I would go months without finding work, even simple jobs like at Subway.

@dansup
It's not alwas the guys with the diploma(s) that do the most, nor the best. And an atypical parcour can somitimes mean you might think of solutions someone with a more classic background wouldn't, or would imediately dismiss, making the world poorer for it.

@dansup many many many credentialed CS grads refuse to work on projects that aren't done Right (rewritten how they like, so it's Clean) and when they do get their hands on something they don't have the tenacity to see it through to a release.

Pragmatism will win almost every time against idealism. Sure there's what's mentally perfect, but the universe as-built is not. I've never seen a finished project that doesn't have some amount of duct tape and fudging under the hood.

@dansup Take it from this long time (prehistoric) CS graduate - the paper is neither a shield against imposter syndrome, nor is it necessary for teaching (yourself) programming. So many great resources these days!

The proof is in the work, and you’ve made yourself a great platform and community!

@dansup Like all things we all develop skills in different ways. You do incredible work.

@dansup I’m using Pixelfed every day and I find it absolutely incredible what you’ve built there and how dedicated you are to it. I’m a software dev myself and honestly man, you’re absolutely killing it!

Btw, do you have a Patreon? Would be more than happy to support Pixelfed with a few bucks per month!

@dansup
But in reality, Pixelfed is there and awesome!

@dansup papers are a social construct. Passion is what really drives success imo. And you clearly have a lot of that! Love your work, keep it up! 😊

@dansup

The farther you get from high school, the less those paper accomplishments matter. Once you can accomplish real world things, that's what matters.

@dansup
Inspiration for other self-taught Devs like me