I feel that /r/programming lost a lot of volume and intensity following the API protest drama. This community seemed like a beneficiary. Even anecdotally though, I sit in a couple of language discord servers and engagement seems lower than it was a couple of years ago.
Other couple ideas to consider if job ambitions aren’t a major thought:
Nim-lang / Mummy. Neat in being high level like python but compiled and can do low level stuff. Small ecosystem but good interoperability with c and Python. Can also compile to js. Target embedded to web, very flexible.
Also php. Some people say modern php looks more like java. Either way, lots faster than it used to be. Wildly productive language for web stuff. Laravel or Symfony frameworks.
I guess, what I’d like to hear from you all is a way to jump back in as quickly as possible in such a way that it may be a career.
You might check job listings in your region/country to figure out what languages and technology stacks are in high demand, as where you are seems to matter a lot.
I use xmpp. It happens to be a great fit for a private family messaging service. Good interoperability between modern clients. I get that “nobody uses it” is hyperbole, but the internet is a big place and there is room for services without mass market appeal to thrive.
I don’t think it was the point of your post necessarily, but I did want to mention a couple of things that might make the Linux switch a little easier - if not for you, anybody else reading and agreeing.
First, distrobox (https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox) is a nifty frontend for podman/docker that I think makes it a little more usable/accessible without having a PhD in devops. Basically helper scripts that create a series of simple CLI commands that let you launch a new environment, enter the new (or old) environment, do stuff in the environment, exit the environment. Keeps your core system’s python separated from your development environment(s). Sacrifices the isolation qualities of containers in favor of usability, so probably ok for dev work on a desktop and not so much for production on a server.
Also, there are GUI applications for point and click management of distrobox - I use BoxBuddy, which is available as a Flatpak on Flathub, so again no interference with the core system provided it can run podman and flatpak.
Second, I know the php dev world figured out ways to abstract some docker complexity away with stuff like ddev (https://github.com/ddev/ddev) and lando (https://github.com/lando/lando). I wonder whether other languages have or will build that dev environment in a box abstraction on Docker/Podman/whatever.
I haven’t tested it, but did you look at Damselfly? The documentation seems to suggest you can do it: https://github.com/Webreaper/Damselfly/blob/master/docs/Multi-user.md
Hard to argue with Intel, but I run one of the asrock j3455 boards (with a full PCIe slot and 2 SATA ports) and powershell is reporting OSTotalVisibleMemorySize of 12228504.
Pretty sure I am running a j3455 with 12GB.
edit> Confirmed
I use rclone to mount the Linux NAS from my Linux and Windows computers - SFTP backend is usually fine. Then I am uniformly reading/writing the NAS files as the local NAS user.