48

July 4th and the Long Road to Inheritance

In February 2026, I turned 48.

The celebration was simple: chocolate mousse cake and Poppa chips. No grand ceremony, no spectacle — just a quiet acknowledgement of years lived intensely. Later that same day, an invitation arrived: a farm party in Vågå on July 4th, 2026. The host was Lars Erik Kolden — philosopher, IT manager, and frontman guitarist. Once, long ago, I played drums in his band.

To understand why that invitation meant something deeper, you have to go back to 1998.

The Colloquium

In IN105 at the University of Oslo, we met for colloquium on Simula. Simula — the language that quietly shaped object-oriented programming long before it became mainstream. Inheritance. Polymorphism. Abstraction. These weren’t just technical constructs; they were ways of thinking.

Lars Erik understood it intuitively. He explained class hierarchies as if they were musical structures. A base class was a rhythm. A derived class — a variation. Override the method, keep the timing. Respect the interface.

Years later, those early lessons would resurface in my own work. Architecture first. Implementation second.

GNU/Linux and PHP

It was also Lars Erik who introduced me properly to GNU/Linux. Not just as an operating system, but as a philosophy: transparency, modularity, freedom. Later, he taught me PHP — and more importantly, how to think about inheritance and polymorphism in practice.

Code was not just instructions. It was structure over time.

That mindset followed me into what would eventually become Aamot Research & Innovation.

The Drummer Who Never Missed Practice

In 2004, I was working at Elkjøp ASA in Lørenskog. Long commutes. Early mornings. Physical exhaustion.

At the same time, I played drums at Amatøren in Sogn studentby. Lars Erik was on guitar. Travel distances were long. Energy was limited. But I never missed a band practice.

Not once.

Discipline in music mirrors discipline in code. You show up. You rehearse. You refine timing. You improve incrementally. You respect the ensemble.

The farm party invitation in 2026 was not just a social event. It was continuity. A reminder that the threads from 1998 to 2004 to 2026 are not broken.

Inheritance

Inheritance is not only a programming concept.

We inherit ideas.
We inherit discipline.
We inherit friendships.

Polymorphism, too, has its human analogue. The same person — student, drummer, retail worker, researcher — expressed in different contexts, responding to different interfaces, but retaining core identity.

At 48, I see the architecture more clearly.

The colloquium discussions on Simula were not isolated academic exercises. They shaped how I design systems. The band rehearsals were not youthful diversions. They shaped endurance. The long commutes were not wasted time. They shaped resilience.

On July 4th, 2026, in Vågå, surrounded by music and old friends, I will be celebrating more than a birthday year. I will be celebrating inheritance — technical, musical, philosophical.

And perhaps that is the quiet reward of persistence:
the realization that nothing was random.

Everything compiled.

— Ole Kristian Aamot