User: ben_w

  • Created: 3364 days ago
  • Karma: 27138
  • European software engineer.

    Experience mainly with Swift, ObjC, and Java; usual smattering of experience in other languages (IDL, REALbasic [back when it was still called that], Python, PHP, JavaScript, etc.)

    Human language knowledge:

    - English: native

    - German: certified CEFR level B1 (examination board: telc), which means I can do normal daily things without having to reach for a translator, but surprises still confound me. I understand more than I can speak, my grammar is still terrible.

    - Esperanto/Greek/Dutch/Spanish: self-taught and probably A1 or less, so while I can type ενα τσι και ενα σανδυιχ παρακαλορ without reaching for Google Translate, if I use GT to check my work I find I spelled "tea" and "please" wrong, and when I asked for that in Athens the person behind the counter just corrected me in English.

    - Futhark (just the script, not ancient Icelandic)᛬ ᛚᛖᚨᚱᚾᛖᛞ᛬ᚦᛖ᛬ᚨᛚᛈᚺᚨᛒᛖᛏ᛬ᚨᛊ᛬ᚨ᛬ᚲᛁᛞ᛬ᚲᚨᚾ᛬ᚢᚾᛞᛖᚱᛊᛏᚨᚾᛞ᛬ᚦᛖᛗ᛬ᚹᚺᛖᚾ᛬ᚦᛖᚹᛁ᛬ᚨᛈᛈᛖᚨᚱ᛬ᛁᚾ᛬ᚦᛖ᛬ᚺᛟᛒᛒᛁᛏ᛬ᛟᚱ᛬ᛚᛟᚱᛞ᛬ᛟᚠ᛬ᚦᛖ᛬ᚱᛁᛜᛊ᛬ᛒᚢᛏ᛬ᛞᛟᚾᛏ᛬ᚨᛊᚲ᛬ᛗᛖ᛬ᚨᚾᚹᛁᚦᛁᛜ᛬ᚨᛒᛟᚢᛏ᛬ᚦᛖ᛬ᛟᛚᛞ᛬ᚾᛟᚱᛊᛖ᛬ᛚᚨᛜᚢᚨᚷᛖ

    Currently:

    - In 2024 I stopped working though Brilliant.org courses, not because I've done all of them, but because I've Peter-Principled myself on it: I've done harder and harder courses until I exceeded my competence, which was a lot of stuff, but not the most advanced calculus or group theory stuff: https://benwheatley.github.io/blog/2024/03/11-12.00.16.html

    I tried looking at it more recently to see if it was worth re-subscribing, but it seems like the new material is all focussed on k-11 pupils rather than adult learners pushing themselves further, so I suspect I won't go back.

    - Still trying to finish editing a SciFi novel: got stuck at 90%, the final 10% is in a rewrite loop where I'm never happy with what I produce

    - Looking for work; my main experience is as a senior iPhone app developer, but I am open to be a noob again in some other aspect of software development. Or even non-software, given what LLMs can do these days.

    - LLM coding is each of U+1F631 and U+1F92F and yet also sometimes U+1F4A9, I do have experience of code review and can deal with the latter regardless of whether it comes from humans or machines.

    --

    https://kitsunesoftware.com has all the links to my other stuff