Hello! I’m Jashank.

I’m a programmer and sysadmin, with the better part of fifteen years’ experience under my belt.

From 2015 through 2022, I was an academic at UNSW Sydney, in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, where I taught and researched in operating systems.

I’ve spent most of my life around computers. I first started using computers when I was perhaps eight months old, and I haven’t stopped yet.

programmer.

I program in a wide variety of languages.

I’m most comfortable in C, Rust, Ruby, Perl, Haskell, Emacs-Lisp, and Bourne shell. I also have a working knowledge of a range of other languages; someday I’ll put together a good list.

I’m a strong advocate for program correctness by formal methods, and have a reasonable grasp of formalising program specifications and of theorem proving. I’ve also acquired a fascination with the semantics of programming languages.

I also enjoy good testing, good documentation, and good continuous-integration. I’ve worked with a constellation of version control systems, and a plethora of build/test/delivery systems.

sysadmin.

I’m a proficient sysadmin on most flavours of *nix. My preference is FreeBSD, but I’m comfortable with most BSDs, including OpenBSD and NetBSD). I’ve also got experience with GNU/Linux distributions including Arch, Debian, Fedora; and with System V-derived systems, such as Sun Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris. I also have a basic grasp of Microsoft Windows administration, including managing Active Directory domains; and of Apple macOS administration, though I rarely use either.

I’ve also had experience deploying, managing, and monitoring infrastructure for web applications, database services, mail transfer and delivery, and network infrastructure.

student. educator.

I am was a student at UNSW. (To everyone’s surprise, I finished a degree!)

I was also variously a tutor, a course administrator, and a lecturer for a variety of courses offered at UNSW Computing. I am probably most well-known for hanging out in lectures, and occasionally heckling or telling stories, but I also maraud on course forums answering student questions.

typesetter.

Somewhere along the line, I got interested in the design and presentation of text, both on paper and online. I’m a competent TeX (yes, plain TeX) and proficient LaTeX user. I’ve also used troff and XSL-FO in the past, but I’m much less proficient with them. I’ve also had some experience with Adobe’s graphics and page design tools — notably InDesign and Illustrator — as well as free solutions like Scribus and Inkscape. (Some day, I’d like to build a DTP tool.)

and also…

When I’m not at my workstation, I also experiment with photography, cooking, and music production. I’m also an amateur stage and voice actor, and have had some practice as a production technician and stage manager.

I consume a few books a week; varying from fiction and fantasy through to non-fiction, and to scientific or technical reference material.

I also consume a fair amount of music.

I enjoy assorted television, and sometimes watch movies.

Sometimes I play video games; but it’s rare that I find really compelling games.

Once upon a very long time ago, I also had a black-belt in tae-kwon-do, but I haven’t actively used it in years.