I'm not a likely person to be saying this.

I came to programming late, after a decade selling medical devices — a career that had nothing to do with any of this. I don't mention that as a story about me. I mention it because it's the whole point: if the barrier dropped far enough for someone coming from where I was, it's dropped for a lot of people who haven't noticed yet. If that's you — mid-career, nowhere near this world — I've been on that side of it, and the distance is shorter than it looks.

The machine itself stays private. What I can show you is what it makes — this site, and the work behind it, are its output. The front of it is early, and I'd rather be honest about that than dress it up. The machine is real; the storefront is catching up.

The parts worth keeping aren't mine to hoard. I'm taking the reusable pieces out and giving them away, so someone else can put together their own version — shaped to their life, not a copy of mine. The next step I'm working on is a way to open narrow, read-only windows into the machine — to show the parts worth showing while everything private stays private. That's not built yet. It's what I'm working toward.