From theoretical to practical computer science

In 2007 I finally made it. I got out of university, being 33, just successfully finished my doctorate in computer science. I confess - it was purely theoretical stuff and I liked it. If you are interested, take a look at my publications. Actually the results have some practical implications, mainly I tell people, what not to do, because they cannot expect efficient solutions. Keep your hands off minimizing regular expressions.

So I got out and started programming at a little company. I thought, I knew a lot about programming. Boy - was I wrong. I learned so much by doing. Unfortunately, there was nobody to teach me, but there is a lot of good written stuff that I absorbed.

And then came the podcasts. I usually commute by bike and I used to listen to audio books. But I discovered, that there are so many good free tech podcasts available. Great - I could learn something without wasting any time. If you are searching for programming related podcasts, take a look at my subscribed feeds.

I find Uncle Bob inspiring and got interested in FitNesse. In the last year I became an active contributor. I wrote a port of Slim to PHP in my spare time and use the result PhpSlim at work. I am currently working on the Javascript port JsSlim in my spare time.

In the other part of my life, I am the head of the basketball department in our club, active coach and referee.