3 If we've spoken recently I may have mentioned this new venture, but I
4 certainly didn't communicate my intentions well. Now is the time to
9 The name is a play on the phrase
/Compiler Collection/, as in
[[https://gcc.gnu.org/][GNU 10 Compiler Collection (GCC)]] and emphasizes my approach to
11 problem-solving involving compiler technologies.
13 I recently registered as an LLC, but the purpose of the company is
14 that of a company incubator, or
/compiler/ if you will. In other
15 words, I intend for
/The Compiler Company, LLC/ to be a hub for
16 developing various interconnected products and services which can be
17 operated and managed independently of each other.
19 /The Compiler Company/ technically provides two things:
20 1. free and open-source software
21 2. professional consulting services
23 The software is made publicly available without restriction and anyone
24 can pay for paid professional consultations/training/etc.
26 The
/core/ of our software suite is an insanely powerful development
27 environment built from scratch. It is the catalyst of engineering for
28 every other software component I build and reflects how I believe
29 software should be developed
/today/.
31 The suite further contains a mixed bag of plugins, extensions,
32 libraries, and applications intended for software development in
33 addition to
/all/ vendored dependencies. This setup gives us complete
34 control over every possible piece of code we encounter in the systems
39 Before introducing my company I think it's important to properly
42 + Richard Westhaver (ellis@rwest.io)
43 + 29-years-old (he/him)
45 + UConn graduate 2016 (economics+philosophy)
47 For most of my life, music has been my muse. I played piano and drums
48 in the school bands, played gigs in the local scene and in college
49 started gravitating towards digital recording, sound design, and the
50 process of making music. I started to recognize all the little things
51 about music that made it so attractive to me: Composition, Rhythm,
52 Design, Creativity... All these fundamental concepts, which weave
53 between eachother to produce a piece of music. It's something I started
54 to think about deeply and apply to other mediums -- most importantly,
57 Programming, in many ways is music to computers. Programmers
/are/ 58 musicians. This has been my approach ever since I started learning the
59 basics of Python. After college I began tinkering with Arduino boards,
60 learning about basic NLP models, and building digital synthesizers
61 with Max/MSP. I eventually got a job at a SaaS company in an Agile
62 product support role which was the perfect opportunity for me. I
63 learned all about web applications, software lifecycles, APIs, and the
64 usual cloud infrastructure. In a matter of months I knew what I wanted
65 to do for the rest of my life.
67 For the next few years I worked all day and programmed all night. I
68 became fluent in all things software and was in this sort of crazy
69 cycle, but loved it. Around early 2019 I started working closely with
70 a small group of exceptionally talented developers. We were delivering
71 massive projects for our clients while developing our own R&D
74 One day, I was unexpectedly laid off. I would be lying if I didn't
75 admit it was absolutely
/soul-crushing/. It was at the beginning of
76 COVID and there was a huge corporate shake-up (brand new C-suite), but
77 for someone like me it's impossible not to internalize that and wonder
78 why. This was a difficult time in my life and it took me quite some
79 time to get back on my feet.
81 On the bright side, I did get to spend some time thinking about
/how/ 82 I want to program. When you're working 60h+ weeks at a software
83 company, this is something you can rarely afford if at all. I also
84 made an important decision on where I want my career to go - on how I
85 want to make money and participate in the industry. I want to work for
93 We have a long way to go.
