How does one become a programmer? Based on my own experience, this is all about agency—the moment you stop waiting for software to exist and start creating software that fits your own way of working. The key is discovering that if configuration isn’t enough, you can write the missing tool yourself.

In this article, I look at what system administration entails. We see that the real work is understanding, producing, transforming, and maintaining text.

Whenever working on your computer as a textsmith, never let it hold any mysteries beyond its binary data. This post looks at the five directories that you have to harness as part of your workbench.

While you are wondering which area of your computer you have to bakup first, this article demonstrates the importance of your $HOME directory. In fact, you have to treat it as your workshop.

Any work that you value has to be placed under version control, not only as part of history but preservation. This article shows why textsmiths should use git.