Briefly about me:
I'm a 23 year old (male) student at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. My native language is dutch, but I speak and write English very fluently. I'm in a student organisation for CS-students at the university.
About my study
I'm currently enrolled in the master program in Computer science. This is a 2-year program.
My profile in that program is: Software Engineering.
My interests
My main computer science related interests are: Distributed/Concurrent programming, meta programming, language design, quantum programming and much more...
I'd also be interested in learning about virtual machines, altho I have no experience in the internal workings of these yet.
My non-Smalltalk experiences so far
During my study at the university I've used following languages:
C/C++, Scheme, Java, Prolog, Lisp, XHTML, HTML, SQL, Visual Basic, AmbientTalk, LaTeX, AspectJ.
I've made projects in a couple of these languages too:
Scheme:
- A subway simulation (+ graphical representation)
- A Cardgame
- A tamagotchi in Armpit Scheme on an arduino board with display.
- Pacman game in Scheme.
Java and AmbientTalk:
- Distributed multiplayer minesweeper, distributed whiteboard with voting, distributed banking application in Java using RMI,
- An AmbientWeb project in AmbientTalk, it involved ad-hoc networks and client/server architectures, communication over the HTTP protocol, implemented in AmbientTalk. Using java from inside AmbientTalk to build the GUI in swing.
AmbientTalk is an academic language, it's actor base event driven language, focused on distributed programming with ad-hoc networks.
- A webbanking appliaction written in java with the spring framework, with AspectJ annotations.
- A calendar and scheduling system in Java/Tomcat in a group of 7 people
C++:
- A multithreaded HTTP server in C++, processing submitted articles.
C:
- Extending the Pico language interpreter, adding coroutines, both on meta circular level and in C.
Prolog:
- A flight scheduling system.
My Smalltalk experiences so far
We learned about the core principles of Object Oriented programming in a course, this course used Smalltalk as it's base language to explain these principles.
We used the Pharo image to write the code for a project. I've read the book "smalltalk with style".
Why am I interested in Smalltalk?
Smalltalk is a language which really expresses the OO-ideas, which facinates me. The editor (pharo) being written in smalltalk also inspires you to work not only on the task at hand but look deeper into the workings of said editor and the language.
I'm also interested in learning what more there in the world of smalltalk, outside of pharo.
I've been working with and in open source tools since I've started my studies. Working on an actuall open source project seems very interesting and will teach me alot.
Contributing something to the smalltalk idea is also an added benifit, both for my karma and the community!
Will I stay with Smalltalk after the finished project?
The interest and willingness to participate in open source projects will not diminish, however, next year will be my thesis year, so naturally I will have less time to spend on things outside my study. I'm always interested in learning new things.
I will always be contributing by reporting bugs I find, and if possible proposing solutions.
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