Zach Rottman, PhD

Developer
Data Enthusiast
Art Historian

less than 1 minute read

Daily dispatches from my 12 weeks at the Recurse Center in Summer 2023

Well, that’s day 0, then.

  • Attended orientation and met some amazing folks.
  • Proceeded to feel mostly disoriented, through no fault of the awesome orienters.
  • Meandered about the flatland that is Virtual RC, found and claimed a virtual desk–my own little hunk of the grid.
  • Paired a little on another recurser’s kaggle project, and understood immediately why pairing is where it’s at.
  • Wrote, compiled, and executed a C++ “Hello World” program and wondered, for too long really, whether C++ really is my destiny. Is it?
  • Made some moves on the message board (not an insigificant step), and, well, turns out C may be my more immediate destiny. Felt some relief.

Overall, feeling like I don’t have a lot to show for myself except spiraling eyeballs and a virtual desk with my initials on it, but, hey, may be just about right for day zero.

But perhaps things are already coming into focus. One helpful recurser recommended Kernighan and Ritchie’s The C Programming Language, which mercifully is not very long (8 main chapters, <200 pages). Meanwhile a SICP reading group has begun to form. So… Scheme?