whoami

Hey, i’m tomster and i like tinkering with computers, but also i love knowledge, especially truth. The more the truth, the happier i become!

Since a kid my dad taught me to always think before my actions which helped transform me into a logical person who draws the line, sometimes too conservatively.

I love meeting people, talking with them and learning from what they say and from how they criticize me, because criticism is not a personal attack, it’s a way to improve and i like improvement.

Ever since switching to Linux Mint i’ve been using mostly free open source software. A very interesting observation was that, i used Windows before and had to give up on some of its apps and features, but most of those were actually harmful to my health! For example, i no longer login to YouTube because the algorithm built up such a detailed profile about me, that i developed a binge watching addiction.

We should not forget where we came from! My history sometimes really shows how certain things changed me.

In 2017 my dad introduced me to programming and i loved the idea. Started lessons, but on the entry logic test i scored like 20-22 of 40 which to me felt not good enough. I sucked at programming and couldn’t understand, but after struggling for some time one day dad explained to me the basic logic of how to print a triangle, step by step. He even drew with a marker on the window. Since that lesson it clicked. All this struggle suddenly became common sense and i continued until the end of the lessons. It was C++ algorithms, but we made ASCII console games like Sokoban using Code::Blocks with MingW compiler. No graphics, just text. After so many years i still can’t find a teacher like this. He made everything memorable, fun, serious when it had to be, involving us, etc. Since then i mostly continued self-learning Roblox (which i really, really regret), but i got to the point of knowing almost the entire Luau language. Still, Roblox is social and i met so many people that made it worth my time. Few years later i changed school and they hosted a programming course, this time JavaScript. The company provided us with teachers and an online editor (which i won’t name), clearly intended for simple games both with source code and visual coding blocks. This course rewarded me with the most weird and symbolic two certificates, making a total of three. I kept doing Roblox. Years later, i decided to start another JS basics course just for the certificate and it was online. With four programming certificates before graduating school, i can say that they mean nothing considering they say i should know C++ and JS while i know Luau and GDScript better. I attempted a fifth one, but it conflicted with school and i could only visit the lessons once. It was something like web games, basically HTML, CSS and JS.