Electrical engineer, with an affinity for software development and studying asian languages.

I have been programming since i had my first computer in 1982 at the age of 17. It was a Sinclair ZX80 with an impressive 1 kiB memory. To get started with programming I bought a book on BASIC at Tandy, the now defunct European branch of Radio Shack, and I started learning.

The ZX80 was soon replaced by consecutively a ZX Spectrum, Sinclair QL, Commodore Amiga, and various PC's, and I have been coding in a host of languages such as BASIC, Pascal, FORTH (I still wonder how I actually managed to understand that gibberish), Z80 assembler, MC68000 assembler, for which i wrote a complete disassembler/debugger on the Sinclair QL, Visual Objects, C++, Java, AutoLisp (for AutoCad) and PHP. My favorite language is C++, which I started learning in 2000. The most fun things to do in C++ for me is writing automation servers, ever since i read Don Box' excellent book on this subject.

I have always been impressed with the work of my fellow-townsmen Edsger Dijkstra. Even though I never met him, whenever I am coding, I can feel him watching over my shoulder, ready to kick my butt the very moment I (ab)use a GOTO statement. Despite his beliefs on this matter, starting with BASIC did not rot my brain (or maybe it did and I am unaware of it).

Whenever I am not coding, I am probably doing one of the following: studying math and physics, watching horror movies, reading novels, rollerblading, listening heavy metal music, LMAO at watching Bottom, studying my favorite Asian language Tagalog, debunking conspiracy crackpot theories, or drinking either a Scotch single malt whiskey or a Belgian beer. Cheers.