In case it helps with debugging: cgminer needed restarting in two out of five cases here because of lost connections, and the two cases were at different times. The other three are fine.

Hi there! I'm also new (just signed up), and in a pretty similar situation. Looking into cryptocurrencies because they are very interesting technically, and also because I have dabbled in quant and fx trading in the past, and I can see similarities. Otherwise, I work mainly in Java and Scala, have some professional experience in C and C++ (C++ recently recaptured my attention after a ten-year hiatus because C++11 finally got some things right), and have played with more than forty other languages. I have some time currently, and I'll use it to learn from this forum and hopefully contribute to it and the field.