TLDR: I’m back, everyone.

Yes, I’ve spent the last ten years working on a bachelor’s degree. That’s because I’ve been working full-time as a software engineer, and going to school part-time. It’s long overdue, but California State University, East Bay has just awarded me a bachelor’s of science degree in computer science, with a minor in mathematics and cum laude honors.

With no college debt, to boot.

I held off on posting it here, since CSUEB hadn’t officially confirmed the degree until I logged in and saw it today. There was always an ever-so-slight chance that something would be missed along the way. I owe thanks to a lot of people, including most memorably:

• Dr. Robert Yest, Chabot College
• Professor Jonathan Traugott, Chabot College and CSUEB
• Professor Keith Mehl, Chabot College
• Professor Egl Batchelor, Chabot College
• Dr. Roger Doering, CSUEB
• Dr. Matt Johnson, CSUEB
• Dr. Eddie Reiter, CSUEB
• Dr. Zahra Derakshandeh, CSUEB

I have not yet decided whether to go for a master’s degree. I have decided I need at least a year away from college to recover.

Besides, I’ve already dived into a big project, making Mozilla’s UpdateManager operate asynchronously. This is not easy… but I’m crafting a tool, StackLizard, to help me find all the places where a function must be marked async, its callers await, their enclosing functions async, and so on. Throw XPCOM components into the mix, and it’s going to get deep. But not impossible. I’m basing StackLizard on various tools eslint already uses and supports, in the hope that I can add it to Mozilla’s tool chest as it evolves. (Folding StackLizard into eslint does seem impractical, as eslint operates on individual scripts, and StackLizard will be jumping all over the place.)

I’ll get back to es-membrane and the “Membrane concepts” presentation when I can.