Hello, I am Marlo Zeroth, a software engineer in sunny California. I am techie at heart that loves learning new things. I have always been into computers whether it is helping others with their computer issues, learning how a computer operates, or writing my own programs.
I have experience in the insurance industry where I earned associates in risk management and insurance services. I was a risk manager when I started the transition into software engineering. I fulfilled one of my transition goals when I graduated with a bachelor of science in computer science from the University of California, Riverside.
I decided to transition into software engineering during an intro to computer science course in C++ I took for fun. Yes, you read that right. I took an intro C++ course for fun. It was love at runtime.
Why switch from risk management to software engineering?
In some ways risk management is similar to software engineering. In both of these fields you identify and analyze the problem, identify possible solutions, implement a solution, and monitor and revise the solution. So, I don't view this as a switch from risk management to software engineering, but a continuation into something that I love: solving problems.
In many ways this transition is a continuation of solving problems. While in the insurance industry, I was tasked with creating and modifying databases which led me to learn and use normalization. Normalization made me curious about creating my own applications to track risks. Creating my own application made me curious about other programming languages. Curiosity about programming languages pointed me right into computer science.
I have always had a fierce hunger for learning new ideas and new technology. In software engineering you are always learning new technology and finding new ways to solve problems. For me, software engineering has become the ideal way to stay hungry.
What technologies do you use?
I code primarily in C++, Java, and Python. I am currently learning JavaScript using courses on edX and Coursera to improve my web projects, like this website. My main IDE is NetBeans, though I occasionally use Qt Creator for some of my C++ projects. Other languages I use are HTML, CSS and SQL. Most of the tools I use are open source, like Linux.
I got into Linux with Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope and have been hooked ever since. I really enjoyed being able to modify the desktop environment with gnome 2 and to modify GRUB when multi-booting with different operating systems. My favorite distribution now is Xubuntu. Ubuntu server has been my go to operating system to develop and host my projects.
Since getting into Linux, one of the tools I frequently use is VirtualBox. VirtualBox is a great way to try out different operating systems, create test environments, or simulate a production environment for my projects. VirtualBox is so useful that my first blog post is about setting up Ubuntu server as a guest operating system using VirtualBox.
Why do you blog?
I blog for multiple reasons. In no particular order:
- It helps me track my project progress over time and document my achievements, frustrations, things learned, and other thoughts at the time.
- Document my research on various technologies.
- Share my transition experience into software engineering.
- Document my experiences with various software development tools.
- Reinforce my learning by teaching others.
I welcome feedback, so feel free to send me an email or post a comment. You can also subscribe to my blog. If you have a question about a project or want to discuss opportunities feel free to contact me.
