About Me
Contact Formalities Out of the Way
For article writing inquiries, comments, or anything else, you can contact me at ernesto@garba.org
People that know me address me as “Ernie”. Most messages starting with “Hi Ernesto” are spam.
What do I do?
As Dr.Jekyll (Writer)
I write—on my blog and for third parties—about technology.
As Mr.Hyde (Architect)
“When the developers arrive, it is time to fire the architects.”
A friend of mine
I’ve been working professionally as an Enterprise/Solution Architect for over 12 years. This is rather a ‘social’ role, rather than a senior engineer one. A good chunk of my time goes on planning, budgeting, HR, and old-fashion business analysis, plus lots, LOTS of meetings.
Having said, I don’t quite believe in the separation between theory and practice, or ’talking’ versus ‘doing’. Even though I don’t earn a living writing code, I spend a lot of my discretionary time tinkering with it, and writing about it.
I grew up in the 8-bit era in which loving computers meant writing computer programs. There were no ‘IT people who can’t code’ back then.
As “The Real Me”
There isn’t such a thing but I’m forever trying to get back to making music again.
Long Story Not Quite Short
My grand, grand, grand … grandfather was a member of the Australopithecus afarensis species. My ancestors lived most of their existence in Africa and have only recently ventured beyond this continent. But you probably knew that.
Hard to tell what makes me any different from the other eight billion homo sapiens siblings on this planet. So I’ll stick to the factual, boring stuff.
A Tale of Four Continents
I was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the late 70s, where I lived roughly 10 years. I then spent roughly another 10 years in AsunciĆ³n, Paraguay, with Argentina and Brazil sprinkled on top.
The two countries, despite ending in guay—‘place from/to water’, in the indigenous language, Guarani—are very different.
Uruguay, which faces the South Atlantic, has four—well-demarcated—seasons, with cold, windy, wet winters. Feeling cold is what I remember most vividly. Montevideo is the southernmost capital in the Americas. It is roughly at the same latitude as Cape Town, South Africa and Wellington, New Zealand.
Paraguay, further north and closer to the equator, is landlocked and has two effective seasons: scorching hot summer (40c at night!) and a handful of—actually cold—winter weeks.
“If you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere.”
Theresa May, former UK Prime Minister
The bulk of the ‘rest of my life’ I have lived primarily in the UK—around London—but, to make things more complicated, I have also spent significant time, ranging from 3 months to 2 years, in Italy (Milan and Brindisi), Belgium (Brussels), The United States (Dallas and New Jersey), and Tanzania (Dar Es Salaam)—where Australopithecus fossils have also been found!
I have also taken long sabbaticals and holidays in India, Southeast Asia (primarily Thailand and Indonesia), and Mexico.
According to Mrs May, I should be a citizen of nowhere.
Former Computers
These computers have heavily influenced who I am. If you did not own these, you wouldn’t care, so feel free to skip this section.
8 Bit
- Atari 2600 (Darth Vader case) —not a computer? I know.
- Adam Coleco Vision
- Commodore 128
- Commodore 64
- TK-90 (ZX Spectrum clone)
16/32-Bit
- Commodore Amiga 500 (check my mymusic page)
- PC Clone 486 with Gravis Ultrasound Card, Sound Blaster (for Adlib) and HardSID!
Languages
Old
- BASIC
- Apple II BASIC (as implemented on the Coleco)
- Commodore BASIC
- AMOS (Amiga)
- Microsoft QBASIC
- VisualBasic 3
- x86 real mode assembly
Contemporary
- Go
- Haskell
- HTML/CSS/etc
- Java
- JavaScript
- Perl (everyone hates it nowadays but it was all the rage in the 90s)
- Python
Languages evolve rather rapidly, so the moment I spend too much time on any given language, I start getting rusty in all the others. I never wanted to learn Python but this seems to be my go-to language for everything now.
I’ve been a Linux user since the Slackware days but I prefer ‘for dummies’ distros, such as Mint, nowadays. I’ve lost interest in the likes of ‘compiling my own audio driver’ kind of challenges.
Obligatory Disclaimer
Opinions expressed on this website are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my past, current, or future employer(s).