Comment by wglb

6 months ago

Great story. Worthy of a blog post or several.

Thanks, not really a blogger. I should really, since I have tried to pass down my experience or mentor, but unfortunately, a lot of people younger than myself, were intrigued but went on to chase safer and more lucrative salaried work. In Macau for instance, the government subsidizes the citizen residents with an annual stipend, free transportation, and medical care. One of my trainees after a couple of years left to take a government office job with benefits, and collect his $1k+ USD annual stipend. He remarked how much he learned, and how exciting it was to overcome his fear of being underwater, and how the new job would not really challenge him. But he still left it all behind. My older son picked up some of my eclectic background but has recently taken a tech job in software engineering. I am developing a protable, power dense, novel wirerope hoist with an old friend, and I am hoping it takes off and I can drag him into the business. There he can exercise many skills and still program. We are going with Ada/SPARK2014 for the high-integrity, safety-critical aspects. Rust hasn't standardized yet and doesn't have the verification tools yet, but it's heading that way. Maybe in 5 to 10 more years it will have a legacy in this field to compete.