there are many pathways, all equally valid

I started with one of Al Sweigart's "Invent with Python" books. There are several, and you can pick the one that interests you the most: https://inventwithpython.com

Only problem with Python is that it's fairly different from other languages, in ways that make it more pleasant to program in most of the time, but might teach you bad habits. If you'd rather learn "the hard way", it might be better to start with Java (which is what my uni teaches), C, or Rust.

If even Python seems like too steep a learning curve, Scratch is a good way to learn the basic theory of programming without jumping straight into a full-on programming language: https://scratch.mit.edu/ - once you have the hang of making games and animations in Scratch, the logic of a more advanced programming language like those mentioned above should make more sense. Scratch is intuitive enough that it's possible to figure out just through trial and error, but if you still want set projects to work through, Al Sweigart also has a book on it (http://inventwithscratch.com/)

Here's the list that Retrospring uses to generate those questions. I've gone through and answered every question, including ones that were removed (mostly for very good reasons).

• Are you afraid of going outside at night? No, I'm quite used to it by now.
• Are you afraid of the dark? Not really, but it's inconvenient sometimes.
• Are you religious? I'm not a member of an organized religion, but I do ponder the mysteries of the universe from time to time.
• Can you cook? Not well, but I know the basics.
• Can you dance? Not well, but I can step touch.
• Can you draw? Do stick figures count?
• Can you play any sports? Nope. I hate sports.
• Can you play baseball? I hardly even know what a "base" is.
• Can you play the guitar? No, but I'm sure I could learn more easily than most people.
• Can you play the piano? Yes! Though I'm a little out of practice, and prefer synthesizers.
• Can you play the saxophone? No.
• Can you play the trumpet? Definitely no.
• Can you ski? No.
• Can you speak a foreign language? I know a tiny bit of Spanish and German, and I do know toki pona, but that's a conlang.
• Can you swim? Poorly, and I probably need coaching, but I think so?
• Can you yodel? No, but I wish I could.
• Do you have a nickname? Too many to list.
• Do you have any siblings? One, younger.
• Do you have any pets? I consider my parents' pets to be my own to some extent, but sadly my residence does not allow pets.
• Do you like muffins? Sometimes!
• Do you like social networks? No, most of them are toxic hellholes.
• Do you like the place where you live? I like all the local businesses and the people, but I don't like all the BS that comes with living in America, like the lack of universal healthcare and the extremely polarized politics.
• Do you like to travel? I don't do it often, but yes!
• Do you like to sing out loud when no one else is around? I don't care if anyone else is around, I love singing.
• Do you like video games? Yes, a bit too much.
• Do you prefer to browse the Internet on your phone, computer, or another device? Definitely my laptop. Mobile browsers kinda suck.
• Do you prefer to live in a house or a flat? I'm too young to understand this. Probably a house, though I worry I'll only ever be able to afford an apartment, even on a high salary... and maybe it's better that I don't overspend on housing anyway.
• Do you prefer to take baths or showers? Definitely showers.
• Do you prefer to watch movies or read books? I like both, but I tend to be more immersed by movies and watch them more often than I read books.
• Do you recycle? Of course I do!
• Do you think that late is better than never? Depends on the context, but usually.
• Do you want more friends? I want more in-person friends, I'm very lonely outside of the Internet.
• Do you want more money? I want money, period. I'm still dependent on my parents and getting a job is difficult.
• Do you want more things than you need? Yeah, I'll admit I don't need an extra 20 CDs to pile onto the extra 143 but I do want them.
• Do you want old times back? Not really, I think we've made a lot of positive progress since "old times". Though I really hope we actually overcome the negative sides of the present day.
• Do you want to know more about history? Yeah, it's an interesting subject.
• Do you want to know more about new inventions? Maybe, but in practice I've found that new inventions rarely stick around, especially not the ones that get loads of media coverage.
• Do you want to know more about your future? I'd rather experience it.
• Do you want to know more about your relatives? I already know enough about them, they aren't mysterious to me.
• Do your friends know much about you? I'm not sure. I try to be open with them but there's enough that I don't talk about that sometimes I might come off as mysterious.
• Do your friends know too much about you? Again, I don't think so.
• Do your friends know much about your family? Only the basic details.
• Do your friends know too much about your family? I don't think it's too much.
• Do your friends know much about your hobbies? Yes, I can't stop talking about them.
• Do your friends know too much about your hobbies? My friend, there is no such thing as too much information about Star Trek.
• Do your friends know much about your life? I think they know a fair amount.
• Do your friends know too much about your life? I vent a lot, so maybe. I think it's fine though.
• Do your friends like muffins? How would I know that?
• Do your friends like social networks? No, they usually agree that they're toxic hellholes.
• Do your friends like video games? Yeah, that's one of our main ways of socializing actually.
  
• Do your friends like you the way you are? I hope so.
• Have you ever been caught cheating? No, I just don't cheat, either in relationships or on exams.
• Have you ever been caught doing things you shouldn't do? Yes, I think I have. Can't think of an example though.
  
• Have you ever been mistaken for someone else? Probably, even though I'm hard to mistake.
• Have you ever been to Australia? No.
• Have you ever been to Austria? No.
• Have you ever been to Brazil? No.
• Have you ever been to Bulgaria? No.
• Have you ever been to China? No, and I'd rather not.
• Have you ever been to Czechia? No.
• Have you ever been to Finland? No, but I'd like to.
• Have you ever been to France? No.
• Have you ever been to Germany? No.
• Have you ever been to Italy? No.
• Have you ever been to Japan? No, but it would be cool to.
• Have you ever been to Mexico? No.
• Have you ever been to Monaco? No, but I find micronations fascinating. Really cool geographic anomalies. I have been to Liechtenstein.
• Have you ever been to Norway? No.
• Have you ever been to Poland? No.
• Have you ever been to Russia? No, and I don't want to, until their government changes drastically for the better.
• Have you ever been to Slovakia? No.
• Have you ever been to Slovenia? No, and no offense to people who live there, but that's one of the European nations I think about the least.
• Have you ever been to Sweden? No.
• Have you ever been to Switzerland? Yes! It was a wonderful trip.
• Have you ever been to Ukraine? No, but I hope that their ongoing war with Russia ends well for them.
• Have you ever been to Venezuela? No.
• Have you ever been to the USA? I live there.
• Have you ever been to the United Kingdom? No, but I'd like to someday.
• Have you ever had an accident? I haven't had a car accident, or broken a bone, but I guess I have caused some minor, lower stakes accidents.
• Have you ever listened to classical music? Yeah! I had a huge classical music phase as a kid.
• Have you ever listened to drum and bass? Yeah! I love it.
• Have you ever listened to dubstep? Yeah, but most of it is too loud for me.
• Have you ever listened to frenchcore? That is not a genre. You made that one up.
• Have you ever listened to hardstyle? Probably, but I'm not sure what it is.
• Have you ever listened to J-Pop? Thanks to Retrospring, I've listened to a bit too much J-Pop.
• Have you ever listened to K-Pop? Yes, and I don't like it... please don't kill me
• Have you ever listened to metal? Yes, and I don't like it. Somehow I'm less worried about the fans killing me for saying that even though this genre is full of actual murderers.
• Have you ever listened to music from the 50's? Yes, but not much of it. Frank Sinatra and the like.
• Have you ever listened to music from the 60's? Yes, I really like The Beatles.
• Have you ever listened to music from the 70's? Yes. That was the era of prog rock and early electronic acts like Kraftwerk (my favorite band of all time), soooooo good!
• Have you ever listened to music from the 80's? Yes. Pop music peaked in that decade, I think, and I really like 80s rap for some reason.
• Have you ever listened to music from the 90's? Yes. That was probably the best decade for electronic music, and for rock it was second only to the 70s.
• Have you ever listened to nightcore? Yes, enough that I feel I get it. It's just sped up songs, but it's also more than that.
• Have you ever listened to punk rock? Yes, I love Fugazi and Chumbawamba.
• Have you ever listened to trance? Yes, it's hit or miss for me though.
• Have you ever listened to vaporwave? Yes, I love Blank Banshee.
• Have you ever pet a bat? No, and that sounds difficult.
• Have you ever pet a bnuuy? FUCKING BNUUY!!!!!!!! no
• Have you ever pet a bunny? What the fuck is a bunny? /j
  
• Have you ever pet a cat? Yes, I love petting cats, they're so fluffy...
• Have you ever pet a coyote? I'm more afraid of them eating me.
• Have you ever pet a dog? Yes, dogs are such friendly creatures.
• Have you ever pet a dragon? I've replied "pets you" to a dragon furry, does that count?
• Have you ever pet a ferret? No, but that sounds fun.
• Have you ever pet a fox? No, but if I could get one to approach me and not maim me, I would.
• Have you ever pet a horse? I don't think I have.
• Have you ever pet a hyena? See my answer about coyotes.
• Have you ever pet a lion? That sounds extremely dangerous.
• Have you ever pet a lizard? No. Do they want to be pet? Maybe I should.
• Have you ever pet a marten? No, but they're cute.
• Have you ever pet a mouse? No.
• Have you ever pet a raccoon? No.
• Have you ever pet a rat? No.
• Have you ever pet a shark? Is that even possible?
• Have you ever pet a wolf? Not unless dogs count.
• Have you ever pet an opossum? No, but I like them. They're silly.
• Have you ever pet an otter? No.
• Have you ever pet an owl? I'd be surprised if one got close enough to me to do that.
• Have you ever ridden a horse? No.
• Have you ever written a love letter? Yeah!
• Have you ever written code? Tons.
• Have you ever written in Japanese? Not really, though I've drawn Japanese characters poorly without knowing what they mean.
• How fast are you? Moderately.
• How fast is your internet connection? It's no gigabit ethernet but I can get up to 30MB/s downloads on a good day.
• How has your day been? As of this writing, which is a long time before I'll post it... fine.
• How often do you cook? Very rarely.
• How often do you eat food not prepared by yourself? Most of the time.
• How often do you iron your clothes? I don't bother with that.
• How often do you take selfies? Only when someone I trust a lot asks me very nicely, so basically never.
• How often do you use condiments? Occasionally. But I often leave them out.
• How many followers is too many? I don't know, I survived with nearly 2000 on fedi for a while but at that point I was starting to feel watched.
• How many open tabs do you currently have? Eleven.
• How old are you? Old enough to vote, but not to drink.
• What activity do you enjoy the most? Making music.
• What activities do you enjoy the most? The above, alongside writing, programming, listening to music, and tinkering with PCs.
• What apps do you use daily? Firefox, Ghostwriter, Discord, and all the standard KDE stuff. On my phone, Fennec, Discord, Thunder for Lemmy, K-9 Mail, mucke Music Player, and all the standard Android stuff.
• What do you do for a living? Nothing right now, but I am looking for jobs in IT and software development.
• What do you do for fun? Video games, and the making and consumption of music.
• What do you do on the weekend? Shopping and video games.
• What do you like more, dogs or cats? Cats. Can't say why.
• What do you like more, tea or coffee? Tea. It just tastes better.
• What do you think about Bad Dragon? Furry porn is a human right!
• What do you think about cats? They're the cutest little mass murderers in the universe.
• What do you think about coyotes? Cute but threatening.
• What do you think about dogs? Cute and friendly!
• What do you think about dragons? Big and imposing, but I bet they're actually pretty nice if you get close and don't anger them.
  
• What do you think about "fact" accounts? They're fun. Facts are fun. Especially fake ones.
• What do you think about foxes? THE CUTEST!
• What do you think about lizards? ALSO THE CUTEST!
• What do you think about raccoons? Their love of trash might turn some people off, but I love those guys.
• What do you think about society? Needs to be burnt down and rebuilt from the ground up with an actual sense of respect for others and stewardship for the environment.
• What do you think about surveillance? It's evil. Privacy is a right.
• What do you think about the Internet? Cool concept, flawed execution. Alongside alcohol, it's the cause of and solution to all the world's problems.
• What do you usually do when you're bored? Try to think of something to do, and listen to new music.
• What do you usually have for breakfast? Tea and a bagel.
• What habit do you find really cute in a person? Typing quirks, perhaps.
• What is heavier: a kilogram of steel, or a kilogram of feathers? I know they're both the same, but I'm gonna say it's the feathers, just to be contrary.
• What is one thing you'd like to become better at? Processing my emotions.
• What is the best fast food chain? Noodles, if that counts.
• What is the worst fast food chain? I refuse to go to McDonalds for any reason.
• What is the best thing about society? I think it's really cool that something a person does on one continent can alter the life of someone on another continent.
• What is the worst thing about society? Everything. We're destroying our future and our present, and our past sucked too, all because despite having a global society, we can't function as a global community.
• What is the best thing about the Internet? Universal access to basically all knowledge!
• What is the worst thing about the Internet? Universal access to all the worst aspects of humanity. And not even by choice, usually.
• What is the best thing about your country? It isn't a fascist dictatorship at the moment.
• What is the worst thing about your country? It might become one, because our "democracy" kinda sucks and mass delusion seems to have become a status quo.
• What is the best thing about your favorite book? I'll go with House of Leaves. I like how the weird page layouts express the story as it gets more and more confusing, and make you feel like the characters. I also like how the same sort of story arc is playing out across several layers of frame narrative.
• What is the worst thing about your favorite book? Johnny Truant, and the weirdly long sex scenes he includes in the story.
• What is the best thing about your favorite movie? I'll go with Contact. I love the ambiguity as to what the "aliens" actually are - are they aliens, God, or a hoax?
• What is the worst thing about your favorite movie? The main romance is not great.
• What is the best thing about your favorite series? Star Trek: The Next Generation has some really great and timeless messages in its episodes.
• What is the worst thing about your favorite series? The writers are kinda misogynistic towards Tasha Yar, Deanna Troi, and to a lesser extent, Beverly Crusher. They try too hard for sex appeal in the worst ways.
• What is the best thing about your hometown? Local businesses!
• What is the worst thing about your hometown? Too many Republicans in the suburbs.
• What is the best thing ever? According to Tom Scott, it's sleep.
• What is the worst thing ever? Nazism.
• What is the best thing one can do if they're bored? Think about something interesting.
• What is the worst thing one can do if they're bored? Self-harm.
• What is the best way to prepare and eat eggs? Scrambled, with cheese.
• What is the worst way to prepare and eat eggs? Uncooked, straight from the shell.
• What is your dream job? Linux sysadmin for an organization that's doing good in the world.
• What is your favourite activity? I already basically answered this with "making music" earlier, but doing creative projects in general.
• What is your favourite animal? Cats! Mrrowww mrrp nyaaaa
• What is your favourite beverage? Tea! I would specify a specific kind but my favorite blend changes very often.
• What is your favourite board game? Probably Settlers of Catan.
• What is your favourite book series? The 2001: A Space Odyssey novelizations.
• What is your favourite console? The Game Boy Advance!
• What is your favourite food? Hamburgers.
• What is your favourite browser? As much as I wish a better browser existed, I have to say Firefox here... even though it still sucks.
• What is your favourite language? toki pona is an interesting concept
• What is your favourite name? I don't have one, but the first cool name I thought of was Theophania.
• What is your favourite number? Negative zero! Yes, it is a real number, separate from positive zero... in one's complement and floating points, anyway.
• What is your favourite piece of music? "Autobahn" by Kraftwerk!
• What is your favourite programming language? This is gonna be unpopular, but I enjoy programming in Python, more than any other language. I know it has technical flaws, but it's less tedious in most cases.
• What is your favourite season? SPRING!
• What is your favourite snack? Annie's bunny fruit snacks.
• What is your favourite sports team? I don't follow sports. Does battle rap count as a sport? Maybe the Cold Crush Brothers.
• What is your favourite text editor? I am looking to upgrade to something more sophisticated, but right now it's Kate (the KDE text editor).
• What is your favourite type of cheese? Gouda!
• What is your favourite video game? Doom (1993), it's just a perfect first person shooter.
• What is your favourite way to eat a potato? Mashed with butter.
• What is your favourite website? The Internet Archive - it's got something for every situation!
• What is your first memory? I'm not sure! Possibly something to do with a daycare I was at, but my early memories are so jumbled I don't know which came first.
• What kind of animals do you have? My parents have a dog and a cat.
• What languages do you know? English, toki pona, and tiny amounts of Spanish and German.
• What was the best day of your life like? My best days are the rare days where I feel excited about something I've made, and like I truly matter to other people.
• What was the best thing you've eaten so far? Either a chocolate babka, or a burger with bacon and avocado.
• What was the worst thing you've eaten so far? I hate McDonalds.
• What was the last concert you've been to? King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. They were amazing.
• What was the last song you listened to on repeat? I've been really into "Rapture" by Blondie and "Big Wheel" by Patricia Taxxon lately.
• What was the last thing you ate? A burger.
• What was the last thing you did? Finalized this monster of a list to publish on Retrospring.
• What was the last thing you have bought? A Star Trek badge that didn't arrive.
• What was the last thing you have done? Wait, that's the same question from earlier, just ungrammatical.
• What was the last thing you have eaten? Maybe I should file a pull request to get rid of all these redundant questions, seriously...
• What was the last thing you have looked for? Star Trek merchandise.
• What was your favourite song as a kid? "Help!" by the Beatles.
• What was your favourite song from a few weeks ago? "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five.
• What would you do if you had one billion Euros? Buy the entire country of Luxembourg.
• What would you do if you had one million Euros? Donate it all somewhere that will use it for good.
• What would you do if you had the ability to fly? Just get from place to place faster, maybe do some pranks along the way.
• What would you do if you were a dragon? Burn down the offices of evil corporations and politicians.
• What would you do if you woke up with some drawings in your face? Probably just wash my face and leave a sticky note for the most likely suspect saying "hey, what the hell?" But if they seemed like mysterious runes I might need to find an exorcist. Just to be safe.
• What would you do if you woke up with someone next to you? Talk to them and figure out what they're doing here. Either the stereotypical romantic scenario will play out, or I'll charge them with breaking and entering. Or maybe I'll fall in love while they're on trial for breaking and entering.
• Which food do you hate? Yams and sweet potatoes.
• Which food do you love? Burgers.
• Who is the most famous person you have ever met? Either the guy who made the Duke Nukem soundtrack or a random politician who lectured at school, depending on the definition of "met".
• Who is your favourite Retrospring user? Everyone I kept following after the recent purge.
• Who is your favourite actor? Probably Sir Patrick Stewart.
• Who is your favourite artist? There's a question about musicians later, so I'm going to answer about visual art... maybe Van Gogh?
• Who is your favourite comedian? Either Jon Stewart, or Ben Ulmer of LoadingReadyRun.
• Who is your favourite musician? My favourite band is Kraftwerk, so I guess I would go for Ralf Hütter, the band's creative leader.
• Why do people climb mountains? Exercise and sense of adventure and accomplishment.
• Why do printers never work when you need them? Because the industry is fucked and all the major companies are making deliberately bad printers.
• Why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food? Because the heat of in the food when you of out the food is oven of the.
• Would you buy a cheese flavoured bubble gum? No, that sounds awful.
• Would you eat a cactus? Only with the spines removed.
• Would you rather be the best player on a horrible team or the worst player on a great team? Best on a bad team. I could carry it.
• Would you rather live in the city or in the countryside? I'd like to live in a small city. Something walkable with everything I need in it, but not stiflingly dense.
• Would you rather live in a flat or in a house? This is the exact same question that came up earlier but reworded.
• Would you rather lose an arm or a leg? Probably a leg, I can at least get a wheelchair and/or an implant to restore some of the lost mobility.

Bonus round! Questions removed from the list:

• What do you do for a living? I'm a student, so nothing really.
• Where do you live? Earth.
• Where do you work? The Milky Way Galaxy.
• Can you speak different languages? This is just the old version of "can you speak a foreign language?", so see my answer for that one.
• Do you like the city where you live? Yeah!
• What is your favourite programming language and why is it PHP? I know a lot of people who hate PHP, but I really like its model of HTML pages that have little pre-processor macros inside them. Makes a lot more sense to me than most other ways of running dynamic websites.
• What is your favourite programming language and why is it Rust? I like the idea of a memory-safe-by-default low-level language.
• What is your favourite programming language and why is it C++? I. Fucking. HATE. C++.
• What is your favourite programming language and why is it Lisp? I haven't used it in a LONG time, but it's pretty intuitive while being incredibly easy to implement.
• What is your favourite programming language and why is it Pascal? I honestly know more about the philosopher Blaise Pascal than the programming language Pascal.
• What is your favourite programming language and why is it Swift? It's not Swift, I've always seen Swift as a weird unnecessary Apple thing.
• What is your favourite programming language and why is it Ruby? IDK, it seems pretty versatile and nice to program in.
• What is your favourite website and why is it Reddit? I like the idea of bringing lots of forums together under one platform, but Reddit has messed almost everything up in the implementation, especially recently.
• What is your favourite website and why is it Twitter? Ugh, I hate Twitter. The very, very few redeeming qualities it once had were mercilessly destroyed by Elon Musk.
• What is your favourite website and why is it Facebook? Who in the world uses Retrospring and still has a positive opinion about Facebook?
• What is your favourite website and why is it YouTube? Lots of good videos are there, despite how the platform is built.

Quick asks

0/📱 current status
1/🎹 music recommendation (i recommend, but do not require, that you send me one as well!)
2/📺 video recommendation (don't send me recommendations back, i won't have time to watch them)
3/💽 cool open-source software or services (you may specify a type of software/website you are looking for)
4/👽 Star Trek character (one I associate you with, or just random if I don't know you well enough)
5/🖖 Star Trek episode (you may specify a type of episode you are looking for, or ask for a way to get into the series)
6/🔣 Random fact (most likely about one of my interests)

--

Boundaries

If you involve yourself regularly with drama or queer community/fandom/social justice discourse, you may interact, but I will probably not follow back and may mute you if it is pervasive enough. You are encouraged to talk to me about controversial topics if and only if you are willing to accept that I may disagree with you, and hear me out. In return, I will keep an open mind to what you are saying. If you intend to cut me off, harass me, or go after my friends if I'm not convinced of your position, don't bother asking in the first place.

Non-sexual flirting is okay, but ask before making overtly sexual comments. Since I allow followers under 18 and Retrospring does not yet support content warnings, it may be best to move those conversations to another venue. Feel free to ask for my contact information on other platforms.

Largely depends on who I'm with. Among "normies" I tend to worry about coming across as cringe or annoying, and among "weirdos" I tend to worry about coming across as boring or fake. Either way, the worry is that I don't belong anywhere.

On one hand I have a weird accent, I visibly stim and talk and sing to myself in public, I get super passionate about certain things and infodump. I can think of many occasions in my life where, in retrospect, someone was probably really annoyed at me and just pretending to care while I infodumped at them. On the other hand, I have a formal, grammatically precise writing style, I tend to appear very laid-back and calm, I'm very conflict-averse, and my media taste, while oddball at times, is arguably that of someone 20 years older than me. It shocks me that no one has ever questioned my right to appear in queer spaces because I often feel like I should come across as a boring cishet.

It's odd that I have this worry because I don't have the trauma that would normally cause it. I was hardly ever bullied in school, and no one has ever told me I'm cringe or that I'm boring, quite the opposite actually. But I guess just hearing about hatred for people kinda like me, even in a negative light, was enough for me to internalize it. My intrusive thoughts do things to me that my conscience finds absolutely despicable.

In any case, "being myself" and authenticity have always been more important to me than conformity and conflict avoidance, so I don't change much about myself consciously. Definitely a bit unconsciously, though, and enough that it's caused me tons of distress.

i cannot give you advice here. i can only tell you my understanding of my own psyche, with the disclaimer that i am not very mentally healthy, so i might be doing a few things wrong.

for one, i both hate lying (even subtly) and am very afraid of conflict, so i've developed a lot of social strategies to balance the two, basically saying what's on my mind but in a way that makes an adverse reaction less likely. i will only outright lie when i feel i am in genuine danger, but i do bend the truth sometimes to get around a potential conflict. also, weirdly enough, my feelings in this regard are almost exactly the same online as offline, anonymous or not.

i also seem to have a different response to social adversity than others. one of my greatest fears is that people only interact with me because they have misidentified me as a good person. i deal with that by being as honest and vulnerable with friends as i can, so i know they know who i really am. i get embarrassed occasionally, and the memories torment me for years afterwards. but i use that to hone my strategies for avoiding embarrassment while staying honest. (also to develop new complexes and worsen my self-hate, but that's beside the point.) in situations where others would find a reason to hide themselves and their interests, i rarely find those reasons compelling. and sometimes i find new reasons to open up.

that probably isn't helpful (and remember the disclaimer: this might not be healthy), but i hope you get better about vulnerability. it's not as hard or dangerous as it seems. outside of the internet, most people aren't assholes, and the assholes are easy to spot. hiding is not as necessary as you think.

Linux is an operating system - the basic software that makes a computer function, or the same sort of thing that Windows, OS X, and Android are. In order to maximize its users' control over the operating system, nearly everything to do with the OS's development is open-source (like Mastodon), completely transparent, and interoperates with other programs. This makes Linux great for specialized uses, so it's the dominant operating system for pretty much everything except personal computers and smartphones.

There's no single entity developing Linux; rather, it's pieced together from a lot of different programs created by different people with similar goals. Some of these programs have overlapping uses, and as such Linux can be pieced together in numerous different ways, creating different versions called "distributions" or "distros." The only program every Linux distribution must have is that way on a technicality - the Linux kernel, because it's the namesake of Linux. You pretty much have to make your own choices at every level of the operating system, which is great for users' freedom and control, but not as good for ease of use - and that's the root of pretty much everything good and everything bad about Linux.

Sorry if this is long, but this is what you get for asking an autistic person about his special interest. If you need clarification, please feel free to reply to this or DM me on Mastodon.

self-diagnosis and self-evaluation are valid, but be careful about it. you could massively improve your mental health, or ruin it. so do your research and don't take extreme measures.

whether you want an official diagnosis is up to you; all it really does is give you something you can show to prove you need accomodation. it also has the downside of potentially denying you rights on the basis of your disability or leading to abusive treatment regimes. it depends on your circumstances whether the positive or negative side shows more, for me it's about neutral.

what's really important is that you accept yourself regardless of diagnosis and don't spend your life trying to conform to social norms that are slowly killing you.

"man, i really like the song magnetic fields part 1 by jean michel jarre. i'm just gonna keep playing it over and over again while repeating this message in british intelligence code."
"dammit kevin you're supposed to be spying on the egyptians, not promoting popular french electronic artists! now change that intermission tone to something normal, like the beatles' come together."
"look we all know these stations are useless anyway. we have computers now! we have top secret post-quantum asymmetric encryption algorithms we could be using! why the hell are we talking over radio? back to jean michel jarre."
"KEVIN I SWEAR. you're fired."