Hi. I'm Youwen. My foremost passion is writing - code, math, and words. I strive for elegant code, beautiful math, and authentic prose.

I put most worthwhile things I do on my GitHub. I write over at a blog called Gradient Ascent. You can check out my portfolio here on this site. You can skip down to my contact info, or keep reading.

coding.

I learned how to code when I was in 3rd grade (around 8-9 years old). Regrettably, I am not a gifted genius and did not build a massive open source empire nor did I found a startup before the age of 12. My projects consisted principally of crummy games or terrible websites. My biggest regret is spending the pandemic lockdown learning React and web development in 2020 instead of becoming a cool kernel hacker or something.

Nowadays, my personal projects primarily consist of tools to make life easier. My academic interest is in exploring how we can improve the reliability of computer programs through formal mathematical methods - namely, the correspondence between programs, proofs, and categories.

hacking.

Most people I know in real life think that I am some kind of hacker - likely because they once saw me open up a text terminal and update my packages with pacman. I proclaim myself a hacker because I once learned how to create shoddy CRUD web applications with fad web technologies and believe that places me in the same group as Torvalds and the other hackers who build actual software.

I subscribe to this definition of hacking, though, by which I am deemed a hacker.

math.

I learn about math I find interesting as a hobby. I also happen to be pursuing it an undergraduate degree in it, soon.

I tried doing math competitions in middle and early high school before I realized that it wasn't for me (that's my way of saying that I couldn't hope to compete with the prodigies). Still, I wholly recommend that anyone who likes math take a look at The Art of Problem Solving before stepping into calculus and beyond, as mathematical intuition and insight is magnitudes more valuable than a shallow familiarity with formulas or integration methods.

other stuff.

Let's see. I play guitar, although I haven't had much time lately. I play video games sometimes, here's my Steam profile.

If for whatever reason you're interested in the tools I use on my computer, I have a brief page about it. I'm legally obligated to notify you that I run Arch Linux with a tiling window manager and Neovim.

This site contains a colophon, for those interested in its inner workings.

contact me.

Find me on:

I read message requests everywhere but do not accept Discord friend requests if I don't know you. The best way to reach me and receive a response is probably by email.

If you notice any issues with or have any suggestions about this site or any of my projects, feel free to send me an email or message about it.