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0 pointspfarnsworth8y ago0 comments

Out of curiosity, what brings a physician at a community hospital to a largely programmer forum? I'm genuinely curious, I love the fact that HN has such a diverse set of very intelligent people.

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smackingly8y ago

I have an interest in technology. This place has a good offering of technology news and discussion that I can't find elsewhere.

Also, a significant number of my investment gains originated from stuff I read here (bought a bunch of Monero when it was $0.45/unit, for example).

Finally, I learned a little programming (mostly Go and C++) to automate some stuff at work and home (reports, backups, email notifications and things like that). HN is a reasonable litmus test for what people are using to do stuff like this.

pfarnsworthOP8y ago

That's very cool, thanks for sharing!

barrkel8y ago

I don't think reasonable developers use C++ or Go for any of those things. You might use a backup utility written in C++ or Go; but you don't write your own if you can help it, and you drive it with a scripting language like Python or Ruby or even bash.

No knock for learning. But if you want to get maximum bang for your learning buck, focus on higher level stuff with lots of third-party libraries that integrate with the things you want to automate, ideally with a interpreter REPL for exploratory coding.

smackingly8y ago

Yeah, I know, I was just trying to show that I have a broad set of interests and enjoyed learning Go and C++. I use "rclone" for most of the backup-related things.

neutronicus8y ago

They might be consuming some APIs that drive the choice.

\shrug. Hard to know.

shouldbworking8y ago

I've seems lot of people from other branches of engineering and medicine on HN. My guess is that biology is just an interest in the natural form of tech, seems to be a lot of overlap.

Baeocystin8y ago

I agree. I may earn my living in the tech field now, but I majored in Cognitive Science, not Computer Science. And I think it has served me well.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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smackingly8y ago

I have an interest in technology. This place has a good offering of technology news and discussion that I can't find elsewhere.

Also, a significant number of my investment gains originated from stuff I read here (bought a bunch of Monero when it was $0.45/unit, for example).

pfarnsworthOP8y ago

That's very cool, thanks for sharing!

barrkel8y ago

smackingly8y ago

Yeah, I know, I was just trying to show that I have a broad set of interests and enjoyed learning Go and C++. I use "rclone" for most of the backup-related things.

neutronicus8y ago

They might be consuming some APIs that drive the choice.

\shrug. Hard to know.

shouldbworking8y ago

I've seems lot of people from other branches of engineering and medicine on HN. My guess is that biology is just an interest in the natural form of tech, seems to be a lot of overlap.

Baeocystin8y ago

I agree. I may earn my living in the tech field now, but I majored in Cognitive Science, not Computer Science. And I think it has served me well.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse