A Reminder for 2025 and Beyond

January 2, 2025

Carlos Valdez

Full-stack Developer

There have been moments in my life where people ask me what I want to do with my future, and I never really know what to say. Until now, I think most of my life has been focused on milestones. In K-12, my goal was to get into college, and I did as I was admitted as a freshman to UC Irvine in Fall 2021. Beyond that, I wasn't exactly sure what was next. I know the very simple details: I graduate, I get a job, and then... what?

While at UC Irvine, I always understood it was a fantastic opportunity. I get to interact with other people who have similar interests as me and want to explore the computer science field. The thought of that was really exciting to me as I loved computer science. I had tried to join a few organizations, with my personal favorite being Design at UCI, but it still didn't feel quite right. I didn't feel like I found my "community" yet. I later found out that I wanted to join an open-source organization, but this was discovered late into my college career. (At the time, I wanted to join a group that "makes programs for fun, without finances involved.") Had I joined an organization, I'd have probably explored mentorship opportunities, or ask questions about the job industry. It's very easy to say that behind a screen without having to face social anxiety, though.

It was maybe around January 2024 (three years into college) that I felt like I knew how I wanted things to go. I wanted to be a software developer at a company, but spend my free time in open-source software. In a perfect world, a company would pay me to work in open-source. This probably won't happen unless I work at a super big company like Google.

The more I think about the future, the more I realize I first need to take time to identify my values. I spent a little bit of time on this in therapy, though for different reasons. :)

As of late, I feel like I have a clearer idea of who I want to become. Great timing too, since I'm due to graduate soon. Although I know I'm not perfect by any means, clarifying my values will help me figure out the direction I'd like to go in my life.

Wikipedia:

Open-source software (OSS) is computer software that is released under a license in which the copyright holder grants users the right to use, study, change, and distribute the software and its source code to anyone for any purpose.

I want to be an advocate for open-source software. OSS makes it possible to freely use software in an accessible and transparent way. Growing up, I've often heard rumors about how computer programs are spying on us. In some cases, they weren't even rumors.

OSS makes it so that experts can freely examine the source code, ensuring that a program is safe. What's better is that it doesn't even have to be an expert. The source code should be freely available to audit, regardless of expertise level, because that's transparency. You have nothing to hide, right?

My proudest OSS contribution is Iris, a program I'm helping build at UC Irvine with the Ojos Project. I plan to publish a blog post about it in June 2025.

I believe users are entitled to secure software. Software should be transparent in how it's designed so that users can make informed decisions about what they're using. Likewise, software developers should ensure users' data is secure and safe in a way that a user doesn't even have to think about it. Think passkeys. I'm a big fan of them, as well as any public-private key encryption, because it greatly enhances your digital security while also being a seamless process. At least, a seamless process to use. In my mind, passkeys perfected public-private key authentication.

I also think that encryption is a must in most software. I've recently been a big fan of GPG. I'm using LibreOffice Writer to write this blog, and I've recently noticed that Writer has a GPG implementation that allows you to encrypt your document's content using your GPG key. This is truly beautiful.

Growing up, I was the family technician. If something wasn't working on a phone, I'd typically figure it out for us. There were moments where I would want to make iOS easier for my grandma to use. It required me to focus on her experience as a user, even if I didn't know it at the time.

I believe that user experience should be a focus for all software. If you provide a bad UX, then people won't want to use your program. If you provide a good UX, people will use your program. Create a great UX and people will want to use your program.

One of the most interesting parts of my Informatics degree is UI/UX research. Some of our assignments required that we build an app to interview people using the app and get feedback about its usefulness. We'd also actively take notes as they're using the program to see if they get stuck or don't know what to do. It's one of the reasons I (eventually) chose Informatics as my degree: we have to talk to users and confirm that our product is useful and effective.

This is something kind of new to me, and I don't quite know what else to call it besides "history." One of the things that I love about Git is the fact that it keeps track of a project's history. We can go through the old Git logs and see the changes being made as they were written.

I keep a collection of Git(Hub) commits/PRs of historically significant changes, or just to find something funny.

There are other things I like doing that I don't often see my peers doing. I (occasionally) use vim, I navigate my files using the terminal, I participate in mailing lists, I keep GPG keys, etc.

I enjoy using some of the tools developers from the past used, even if they're sometimes significantly harder or not user friendly, because these are the same tools that built the cyberspace as we know it.

So, the point of this post. Originally, it was to help me write the "About Me" section of my website, but its become something more personal to me. It's become more of a reminder to myself. A place for me to come back to whenever I'm feeling lost in the world. It's a big world with a lot of experiences, so feeling lost sometimes is inevitable. The important part is to eventually find your path again. So, for my "About Me" section:

I am Carlos Valdez, a software developer from California. I'm a passionate full-stack developer with a mission to make software easier to understand through UI/UX design. I build software from the ground up based on the needs of a project. I focus on solutions that prioritize a user's experience and security while promoting the principles of open-source software.

My interest in technology began when I tried to show my grandma how to use her phone. I eventually challenged myself to try to make an iPhone easier for her to understand. Not only did this kickstart my interest in UI/UX design, it also kickstarted my interest in open technology. In high school, I decided to start my programming journey with Python. Since then, I've been enjoying programming as it makes it possible to build whatever comes to mind.

Currently, I'm pursuing my undergraduate Informatics degree at the University of California, Irvine with a specialization in human-computer interaction. I'm also leading the Ojos Project to build hospice/palliative care management software. We're working on this as an undergraduate research project mentored by Mark S. Baldwin. This project has been an incredible opportunity to build a program for a cause close to my heart.

This sounds about right. :)

2024 was an [adjective] year for me. I met people I'll never forget, I learned so much (Rust being my personal favorite), and I was able to continue working on things I care about.

Here's to 2025 and beyond. I'm excited for where my future is headed. Although I may not know exactly where I'm heading, I know I'm heading somewhere. Hopefully 2025 will let me know where.

:^)