If I didn't care I think I would have shrugged it off a long time ago. Not trying to do it until recently has been more the result of massive amount of change in this area which I found I just barely kept up with. I just barely got to the point a year ago or so where I had time to reflect and think how this can translate into something useful.

So it was more like 6 years observation and thinking in a sort of real-world lab experiment, and only the last year or so of "apply lessons learned".

But since I'm not a programmer, and most programmers I've come across are working on their own projects, I couldn't figure out exactly how to proceed ... and based on the limited feed back I got, whether it was even worth proceeding or if I was just fooling myself and seeing an oasis.

Plus regardless of whether I cared enough, now that I found this out I realize it's a valid thing to more than just me. So now I care more. It's just been a long, unrewarding (except the intellectual curiosity part), clumsy, guideless trip so far.

My "adult" self tells me to give up and move on, or perhaps profit from it by working for "the man" ... but then again, what if I wind up 10 years ago in a situation where I say, "Dammit - I should have tried for just one more year - but instead I gave up and now look what happened - it took off right after I gave up and somebody else is doing it."