About me, a FAQ

Who you are?

Well, that depends mainly on context.

I am a technology enthusiast. I am assimilating any information about software development techniques in the hope to discover new and faster ways to create usable applications.

I am a software developer and producer. I create commercial, intuitive software products using the best tools available.

What are your active projects?

  • A new kind of file sharing tool, that utilizes already available, free online storage.
  • An Aculab hardware based routing server software that has been used to route millions of telephone calls.

What have you done?

My first commercial success was a music editor that was developed for the Amiga home computer. Since then I was part in the creation of a number of software products.

One of my fun projects resulted in the C++ system development framework named libsmart.

One of most complex thing I have ever implemented, was the core component of a HDDVD interactivity engine (an incremental XSL layouter with SMIL animation support). I saved my sanity with a small (500 lines) change notification framework with implicit (automatic) dependency tracking.

Do you have research interests?

My research interests are:

  • Zooming, multi touch and 3D user interfaces
  • Graphical programming languages
  • Document organization
  • Information visualization
  • Change propagation systems
  • Usability for developers, i.e. aiming to create “intuitive” APIs
  • Programming language concepts, i.e. higher order functions, continuations
  • Workflow modeling
  • Internal and graphical DSLs

Pick some highlights I may know!

I created major parts of a well known consumer application with a unique user interface, right now it has about 3.2 million Google hits and was listed top ten at Amazon’s sales rank.

What do you think makes you unique in this field?

A friend once said, “you actually feel software”. Besides, this is not always a good thing.

What’s your plan?

This might be a little megalomaniac, but I am really trying hard to create a platform to enhance the formal creativity of humans, which will (hopefully) accelerate the overall world progress in a comprehensive number of fields.

A first step is to create new software products, for which the main objective is to relieve users from most of the boring and error prone work, or alternatively, to make them smarter. One idea is to support change propagation (or event flow, if you wish) in a transparent manner. In my opinion this is one of the major lack of today’s software and also seems to set an upper limit on complexity, which is an obvious factor when creating advanced software.

If this all works out, the resulting framework components will be used in a 3D browsing and visualization engine with the final target of becoming the basis for a new kind of personal information manager.

What is your favorite quote?

Well, I collected a lot that reflect my attitudes, but one of my favorite ones is:

If men believe a situation to be real, it is real in its consequences. – William Thomas

What are your hobbies?

  • Dancing in the morning to Trance, Psychadelic and Rock music
  • Reading science fiction or books about modern physics
  • Running (mostly in spring and autumn)
  • Building Lego Models
  • Hollywood movies, honestly, I like special effects :)
  • TV shows (watching right now: Terminator – The Sarah Conner chronicles season 2, Heroes season 3, South Park Season 12)
  • Playing PC Trackmania. I am not so bad, my world rank oscillates around 6000 :)

What do you think is nonsense?

Constructed values with no actual foundation of proof or reproducibility, for example astrology or religious beliefs.

God was invented to explain mystery. — Richard Feynman

If you really think religion has any real component, think again! All God and Jesus tales are based on the sun and star constellations.

I personally think that most memes that are distributed by media or society is mostly overrated and distracting, including cultural indoctrination. Nearly everything seems constructed to avoid the inevitable confrontation with uncertainty, fear and death. Sadly, these constructs mostly produce the inverse effects of what they intended in the first place, often by shifting morality.

I believe that there is a built in (intended?) flaw in our cognitive system (self?), so that actual truth or value can not be maintained (stabilized), resulting in a world where change is the only stable thing you will ever experience. – I wonder why so many people do have a problem with that.