After studying lisp & scheme with the aid of librep and the documentation available, I have come to the conclusion that breaking the habit of "hmm, I think I could shave off a cycle here, maybe avoid a branch there" and thinking about things as mathematical functions instead of a list of statements is PRETTY FUCKING HARD. It looks like I've spent the last 5 years of my programming time concentrating on stuff that isn't relevant because the program would spend 99% of its time elsewhere. Or maybe it's just laziness manifesting itself in reluctance to write the rest of the program. Lack of self-discipline would probably be one reason, too.
Or maybe I'm just feeling pessimistic, as usual, or something. Dunno. I guess I should put more effort into finishing distance/evening school and then going on to study computing science or something that would give me an actual education instead of "I've poked this and this and this and this and hacked this and this and this and this". The downside would be that at the current rate, I'm never going to finish school and that even if I do, formal education would still kill the fun in hacking... So maybe I'll just use books as a substitute, or something.
Damned if I remember who said it first, but HTML really needs a <RANT> tag.