About IT, DevOps, Dev, Japanese and Christian Külker

• Short IT Quick Guides for various topics
• Software Development: Dev
• System Administration: DevOps
• High performance computing: HPC Dev and HPC DevOps
• Programming language Perl
• Programming language Python
• Japanese culture
• Speeches

System Administration - DevOps

HP-UX probably version 7 introduced me to the world of multi-user computing with its OSF/Motif look and feel, and by the time of HP-UX 10, numerous attempts to compile kterm back then led me to install my own multi-user servers with Linux, and helping to manage a BSD mail server introduced me to the art of system administration with its current refinement of DevOps.

HPC

High Performance Computing (HPC) has been a part of my life since 2006. While I find the idea of HPC somewhat relative, as the HPC of 1990 is probably slower than my current desktop of 2020, it is fun to work with very fast even the fastest hardware on the planet. You can find bits and pieces of HPC Dev and HPC DevOps on this site.

Development - Dev

Creativity as one of my driving motivations opened up a new frontier in the digital space of software development starting with the good old Sinclair ZX81, which was comparable easy to program in assembler.

Understanding the foundation of software (assembler) gives the impression that adding one abstraction layer on top of another does not always lead to better software nowadays, as with the “not invented here” syndrome of modern programming languages (it can be seen by the fact that a new programming language ships with its own compiler and/or packaging system), things usually start to get worse from here.

However, to maintain and improve productivity, the right balance between high-level abstraction and abstinence from too many layers of abstraction is paramount. This is one reason why high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages like Perl or Python have had such an impact in the development world, while others have not.

• The Quick Guides can also be found on github.com

Debian

• Package overview

Reading a tutorial, such as the one in Quick Guides, is sufficient to get a general idea of how to install or use an application. Most software in Debian has at least some documentation.

• Debian documentation home page
• Debian Administrator’s Handbook
• The aptitude search command
• The apropos command
• The man command
• Some applications have a dedicated <package-name>-doc package
• All Debian packages have some information in /usr/share/doc (for example README.Debian)

Other Things

Japanese

Japanese culture has many interesting aspects and the language is one of the most difficult languages to learn. Here are some resources for learning how to write: Books on Hiragana and Katakana. Of course, the best way to experience the cuisine is to travel to Japan. However, if travelling is not possible, cooking recipes yourself is the last resort.

Speeches

This site gathers some of my older speeches and hopefully some new ones in the near future.

Cryptography

The freedom of mankind (i.e. you!) depends on the existence of strong cryptography and the permission to use it. See my simple GNUPG/OpenPGP signing policy.