User:Damon Simms

My background:

• BS and MS degrees in Information and Computer Science from U.C.Irvine

• been working nigh on 37+ years as a programmer, software developer, software engineer, data wrangler, system nabob, web runner, and computer factotem

• and of course I know botchi, it's like a second language to me

• research interests include AI, domain analysis, domain-specific languages, pattern understanding, crypto, metacompilers, software tools, static and dynamic code analysis, robots and sexbots, virtual reality, computer graphics, computer games, natural language processing, and yes, I think all of these are tied together

• I like puzzles and games, I'm not always very good at them... I solved the Rubik's Cube, but it took me 6 months of banging away on it, and I was only able to solve it after a good buddy of mine solved it first, thus proving to me it was possible (and dammit, if he could do it, then why couldn't I)

• had one of the first 1000 domain names... back when they were free for the asking... kick myself regularly that I didn't think to register beer.com or wine.com or some other bitchin' generic name... if I had, I wouldn't be typing this crap here for your amusement, I'd be in Bermuda kicking it

• been editing on Wikipedia since before the bang-whoosh, but a bit after the hoo-hah wars, which were before my time

• i love programming

• i make my living talking to inanimate machines

• i do have other interests besides computers -- scifi, poetry, language, Magic, new and old mythologies like christianity and goddess worship, etc. etc. and music of course

• current research: working on roshambo (you know, rock-paper-scissors game... research is done, now i just have to implement it) woot!

• where i come from, "hacker" means incompetent hick

• even so, at some point every programmer has to hack... it's the only way you get real-world programs to work... i think the goal should be to program as elegantly as possible, up to the point where you have to throw out the rules, pull up the floor boards, and hack your little heart out til you get the mofo to work

• i was born under the sign of Joker, Bad Moon rising

• my current language of choice for prototyping is Javascript

deletionists piss me off, to me they're worse than Vogon numbnuts

wait... they are Vogon numbnuts

Bless the Wiki, bless its comings and its goings. May its passage cleanse the world.