Simon Giesemann, author of CrazyLittleFinger and member of donationcoder joins us for an interview.
Q. Please tell us a bit about yourself.
I live in a regional town in Queensland, Australia. I’m 34 years old, and I have a beautiful daughter who is Fast approaching her 2nd birthday.
Q. How’d you get started with computers and build up your skill set?
I always used to muck around on my aunt’s Commodore 64 but it wasn’t until my family bought a computer, IBM Compatible XT that I really got interested. I remember breaking the computer one day (good old fdisk), but the trick was that I remembered how I broke it and understood what I’d done. It wasn’t until 4 years later that I was exposed to computers at school, where in my final year of high school I swapped a manual arts subject for computer studies, which was a good choice because I received the academic award (highest marks) for that subject. From there I studied computers at college and university until getting a full time job, and have never looked back since.
Q. Which is your favorite programming language? Which tool you use for creating apps?
If I had a favourite language it’d probably be Turbo Pascal :), I seem to remember having lots of fun with that one, at work I use AutoIT a lot and I used AutoIT to write CrazyLittleFingers. In the past I have written programs in C, Visual Basic 6, VB.NET, PHP, ASP and Javascript. I’m currently teaching myself AutoHotKey and C++ (via the DonationCoder.com Programming School)
Q. Did you “teach yourself” your skills, or did learn from a school or other resource?
I’m primarily self taught because I’ve always enjoyed working with computers. I still experiment a lot with computers to learn but I won’t hesitate to attend a course or read a book to gain a deeper understanding of a subject.
Q. How and when did you get involved in Donationcoder ?
I only recently joined DC in October 2008. I had been using RememberTheMilk for some time and was reading the RTM blog one day when it mentioned the Find and Run Robot (FARR), specifically it was about the FARRmilk plugin, but it was FARR that caught my attention as the RTM blog described it as “a program for keyboard maniacs”. So I immediately had a look a FARR and decided that I would use it at which point I read about the unique licensing model that DonationCoder uses. I took a liking to the ‘register, pay anything, get a license forever’ concept. I had some spare change in my paypal account, so I donated, registered FARR and didn’t think much more of it. Later, I received an email from mouser thanking me
and asking how I found DC, which inspired me to look around the DC website. I found out about NANY 2009 and thought about it for a couple of weeks. I had been wanting to write a program like CrazyLittleFingers for 6 months or more and suddenly realised that now I had a reason and a deadline! Every day since then I’ve discovered more and more great features on DC, such as Coding Snacks and Programming School.
Q. How much time do you usually spend on computers/programming ?
I spend all day at work on computers, programming is just a hobby. At home the time I used to spend on the computer I now spend playing with my daughter :).
Q. Do you have any other projects on the go other than NANY App?
I volunteer my IT skills for a local community project called GraniteNet where we are building a portal for the local community groups, complete with a forum, wiki and community calendar.
Q. Do you have any experience with operating system other than windows ?How much you get involved in it?
Do MS-DOS, PC-DOS, IBM-DOS, C/PM count? Does anyone remember Desq/View? I used to run OS/2
many years ago, I’ve dabbled in others, but I know XP inside and out, and I’ve had no inclination to move away from it.
Q. What are your hobbies and interests away from the desk?
I enjoy playing basketball, riding my push bike and I’m learning to play an acoustic guitar.
Q. Who or what in your life would you say influenced you most?
Definitely my daughter and my beautiful wife 🙂
Q. Your favorite stuff from : Food/T.V.Show/Website/Books/Music ?
Food: Chocolate
TV Show. None
Website: Has the Large Hadron Collider destroyed the world yet?
Books: Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Music: Sigur Ros, They Might Be Giants, Joanna Newsom, Lamb, Lordi, Pop Will Eat Itself
Q. Any advice you’d give to new programmers?
Documentation is more valuable than you realise 🙂
Q. Where do you see yourself in future?
Sitting in a straw bale studio overlooking the water doing something I love
[M]Thanks for the interview. 🙂