Seldom without a computer of some sort since graduating from the University of British Columbia in 1978, I have been a full-time Linux user since 2005, a full-time Solaris and SunOS user from 1986 through 2005, and UNIX System V user before that.
On the technical side of things, I have spent a great deal of my career as a consultant, doing data analysis and visualization; especially spatial data analysis. I have a substantial amount of related programming experience, using C, awk, Java, Python, PostgreSQL, PostGIS and lately Groovy. I'm looking at Julia with great interest. I have also built a few desktop and web-based applications, primarily in Java and lately in Grails with lots of JavaScript on the front end and PostgreSQL as my database of choice.
Aside from that, I spend a considerable amount of time writing proposals, technical reports and - of course - stuff on https://www.opensource.com.
Authored Comments
Lee, what a great article! I really enjoyed the way you explain your journey of discovery. I can fully relate to that as I see many parallels between your "transition" to GNU/Linux + GNOME and mine (in my case, it was from Solaris). Of course some are comfortable where they are, some don't want to spend time learning new things but rather prefer to hone their expertise on their existing tool sets, and some are explorers, like you... and it's great to hear that your explorations led you to a great new place, AND it's even better that you shared with the rest of us. Congratulations!
Thank you Miguel!