The Point
Where I come from and where I'm going
I often get a lot of surprised looks when people find out that I’m both a Metaethicist and a DevOps Engineer. “How do those mix? What can you do with either of those? What even are those things?” Well, let me back up a bit and we can get to today before getting into the meat of DevOps Engineering (or Philosophy on another Substack ).
My uncle was who first got me into computers. He was a Cryptologist in the Navy and we used to do experiments with infrared laser data transfers, random coding, Linux, and all things gaming related. It was a blast. I got my first computer when I was 8 and I mastered Windows XP and, at first, only dabbled in various Linux distros. At my home I regularly run a Manjaro Linux setup for personal use and an Arch Linux homelab for experimentation and just pure curiosity on what I can do with it.
Along the way, I started coding more and went to a few competitions for C# coding, though I didn’t enjoy those as much as I thought I would. I did enjoy the coding portion though, and so decided to go to college for Computer Science.
In college, I initially went to become a Video Game Developer, but life had other plans. I read an article in the basement of the library entitled, “Why computer scientists make good philosophers”. I had already been extremely interested in Philosophy for as long as I could remember—Ethics and Formal Logic specifically. I soon switched my major, but not before getting my Associates of Science in Computer Science (otherwise I’d feel like I wasted my time) and went off to graduate school where I got my Masters of Arts in Metaethics/Formal Logic (i.e. Philosophy with a focus on those things). After teaching in University for a few years, I began to miss the Computer Science aspect of things, and started gradually working my way back into the Computer Science industry. I say “back” even though I was never really in it. I only had second-hand exposure to it though most of my friends, but was looking to do something more than I ever have with it.
Today, I am working as a Cloud Engineer and am working to be a bona fide DevOps Engineer. This is a goal of mind, and no it is not just because I am interested. I have this goal for the same reason I went into teaching. The whole point of University is not to get a job or for career advancement (that would be Vocational Education), it is to improve oneself in every way possible: intellectually, physically, ethically, spiritually, personally, etc. I did that the best I could in Academia, and now I would like to do it in DevOps by automating wasteful work—work that is unfulfilling and time-consuming—so that folks can go on to do what they initially went into their field to do. People choose different lines of work for a reason, presumably because they think that it’s worth doing, and I want to eliminate the hurdles in their way so that they can live a more fulfilling life. Hence, I am learning everything I can about the DevOps world and can’t wait to get started, and I will document my journey on this Substack, and on LinkedIn as well.
All the best,
CRP