Honing my craft

Recurse Center Day 1

August 10, 2020

I’m attending the Fall 1 2020 half batch of Recurse Center. I’m taking a break between jobs before joining Facebook, and I’ve been meaning to find time to nerd out for fun rather than money.

I’m interested in the idea of “developer infrastructure” organizations and teams, so I’ll be digging into projects and lectures related. Specifically, I’d like to

  • Implement most of Modern Compiler Implementation in ML in OCaml
  • Read a ton of distributed systems papers from this MIT syllabus
  • Keep working through the CS-537 videos and learn more about operating systems
  • Maybe implement some of those scheduler algorithms

I’ve got 6 weeks to get through this, PLUS embrace all the serendipity of being around new people who are also curious. I’ll be nice to myself if I don’t make it through it all, but I think just the act of learning and being out of my comfort zone will do a lot for me. Plus - there’s a lot of RC alum I respect a ton like Dan Luu and Julia Evans. I’m a pretty big believer that if you want to be where someone is, you should do what they did when they were in your shoes. So, here’s hoping we learn something.


Nikhil Thomas

I work and live in Brooklyn, NY building software.