[deno2]

I made a career move from dentistry to programming. And I would say that anything I've used pre-clojure is a good approximation of pulling teeth. But even pulling teeth has the benefits of knowing when you're finished and the direct customer feedback is usually good.

[cheez]

Why did you decide to switch from dentistry?

[deno2]

An intellectual, emotional disaster.

I'd been programming since a child and I think in all honesty I was pushed into dentistry by the people that love me and wanted me to make money.

However dentistry in London is medicine in two years then three years specialising in the head and neck. Then two years dentistry training.

I found it a LOT of learning facts. I know that knowledge-based systems are better than humans for that application.

I had the pleasure of learning human anatomy for two years with Prof Harrold Ellis. Which is what I really took away with me. The guy was a genius. And the other was "If you are not certain then say I don't know, never guess, always seek truth" not that many people appreciate that knowledge in my experience. Robotic surgery yes, lying about the safety of amalgamate fillings no and telling mums of the effects of sugar and carbonic acid drinks was not enough scientific exploration for me.

I think I was too young, always the youngest in my year, to really know and show what I wanted to do. I should have studied Physics but was told at the time "I'd end up a Physics teacher" as if this was a bad thing...

Pre-uni I wanted to build quantum computers but my Physics teacher at St John Ruskin College school didn't know what direction I should head in (the school at the time was also being ripped off by the head mistress, look it up, bad).

After that I got a scholarship to a private school to do A levels which was absolutely brilliant. Dulwich College an excellent school where I was treated like an adult and learnt maths, physics and chemistry. Two of the best years of my life.

Nobody noticed really that I wasn't just lazy and so it was very tempting to my parents to be told I could go to the best medical school etc when I pissed the exams.

So I went to the best medical school in the UK, Europe not really sure why.

After two years depression forced me to take some action and I quit and got a job in a bank as a COBOL programmer. I learnt that COBOL doesn't cure depression but can even make it worse. However I learnt from two old ladies who were probably employed AS computers in their prime. And they were the awesome COBOL dinosaurs.

From there on its always been a bit of struggle not having a degree. Although what I've taught myself, and continue to do so, is worth several degrees at least. Probably a PhD or two.

I now know a lot of programming languages and have lots of experience in them. Clojure took me to the next level with regards to meta-programming and language design. I still have hopes for genetic programming.

My interests now are really into augmented reality and basically augmentation of human perception, memory and "brain power" both in the progression of our species and knowledge itself.

If you really want to know where my head is at read The Beginnings of Infinity by David Deutsch http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch.

He has interesting ideas on quantum computing, knowledge and reality which align most closely with my own.

I'm now mostly a "Senior Developer". How about you?

[cheez]

Have you had any "portfolio" projects? That is, projects you can showcase? This goes a long way towards the lack of degree.

My story is too long to put into text, but the short of it is that I can relate to a lot of what you went through.

[deno2]

That's another issue too. If it's not a public website that you're building it's quite hard to show off your work!

One of my favourites was a forward-chaining rules inference engine written in T-SQL on MS SQL Server for a sixth-form college. The Management Information System (MIS) was called unit-e built by Capita PLC and probably cost a LOT of money.

It was quite a good system, the query builder for advanced users was excellent (every MIS should have one), but it had a fair amount of data duplication - names, addresses, previous address etc. And the admin staff had lots of name changes and spelling corrections to make. Also you had the data entry dudes who'd write a lazy name like fiesta try basharat instead of Fiesta Try Basharat.

So I built the rules-engine as a stored procedure (SPROC) called by triggers on tables. The rules themselves were just simple SPROCs and some not so simple but the rule interface was simple and so the system was robust. All of a sudden every letter sent by the school was formatted properly and went to the correct address! The admin team even gave me and my junior a present! And the 'junior' became an expert in SQL and learnt a secret ninja weapon (rules, inference engines and conflict resolution).

How many good things were created? How do you demo the transition of knowledge? How do you monetize the time saved? How do you portfolio the potential for benefit of new rules that haven't been thought of yet?

Expansion of knowledge, the beginnings of infinities, there's so much out there I love it!