No. of Recommendations: 10
Dear Sean,
That's an extremely pleasant kind of Open Letter. I created this project out of admiration for the community itself, and observing its long (actually, in some cases 25-year) relationships, and then it ensued before my eyes - I could not help noticing the significant destruction of important cultural value.
I was not expecting anything whatsoever in return for re-programming the platform (without knowledge it would succeed but working purely on hope) for the community to actually return together. And I continue to not expect!
Having jumped into it, however, it did eventually hit me that a lot of my time will continue to be required. Previously, this platform had a firm supporting it, including accountants, sales people, a marketing team, and an array of IT technicians. Thankfully it is a lot simpler around here in Monaco, but still much of that I have substituted with myself, including not just human support but all initial development (starting with zilch, indeed a single line of code, and then everything was hand-typed with a terminal, despite bearing colour, not actually so different to the old-fashioned 1970s Algol-68 way), post-launch technical problem solving with the inevitable ongoing real-time data errors inadvertently bombarding me.
If anyone wishes to provide help, it should be done in Shrewd'm style. You can purchase Shrewd'm Support Stars by clicking the Support link at the bottom of the page.
Just to remind, I am here (unconditionally) for the long-term even if I receive no support. That is highly likely why I dove into action empathetically, reflexively and admiringly towards you. Try to combine those three ideas because they pretty much sums up my actual sentiment. The middle word, 'reflexively', could have gotten me into trouble as I really had no plan, but I believe all will work out.
To give some background, my primary work is in composition. Yet I genuinely *adore* programming, view it as highly creative, and will always be involved with programming to my last breath as a hobby. Part of the labor efforts are dealing with anomalies (supporting the ever-expanding display data thrown at the project from new devices, server crashes from strange combinations of input, and of course black swans which tend to be the normal the software world).
But this next point must not be underestimated regarding how important it is: The most important endeavour for me is to attempting to keep the beautiful cultural tradition here continuing from 25 years ago, and without fear of it being torn away again. In fact, from communicating with a lot of the wonderful people in this community, a great number prefer how it was 25 years ago more than how it has been recently.
This Shrewd'm spirit might be summed up as combining deep curiosity, Wall-St irreverence (leaving the 'helpers' on their own), a jovial and optimistic spirit, and self-belief in taking responsibility for our own financial destiny. So I am going to, over time, continue to emphasise these roots within the best of my ability.
So with that, I'm shrewding off to have a cappucino, will look over some of the text-search algorithms to try to speed them up, and then head back to the composition I was supposed to be working on! I have to admit it, though, programming is truly enjoyable. I'm here for the long-run.
- Manlobbi
