I'm currently volunteering my time at Brown University, helping a class on embedded systems. They're building a new kind of input device that plugs into the USB port.

So someone else is teaching the class and you're there as a, teaching assistant? For want of a better term.

I'm not teaching the class. I'm spending more time doing research to motivate the class on the project.

How did you come to start this role?

After I graduated college (May 2000), my dad invited me to visit his lab.. he's a professor of electrical engineering at Brown. So I help out with projects there once a week. He always has students working on projects.. often the engineering students don't know as much about programming as they need to.

That sounds pretty cool :) I wouldn't mind doing that! Programming is an interesting field. What qualities does the best programmer need, knowledge of the language, a logical mind, an artistic mind. What do you think?

I like to think of programming in 3 parts:
* syntax
* math/algorithms
* creativity (knowing how/when to use math/algorithms)
I find that most people are able to learn syntax if
they stick to it. You can even study random math/algorithms
if you wanted to - but that's not enough. It's the creativity,
I think, that makes for the best programmer -
such as the ability to visualize a problem.


...

I try not to spend much time learning new languages. Sure, I could learn Java and all the web-oriented languages, but they don't offer much different from what I can do in C, other than web applets I guess. I find it much more enjoyable to learn new math/algorithms.

You prefer C to C++?

Yes. I don't use classes.

Interesting, why is this?

I prefer C because it's at the lowest level possible, while still being portable. I like to see all the calculations being done. The code is more readable to me.

So you personally don't find any advantage in developing using OO principles.

The main advantage, I suppose, is the namespace issues - being able to declare multiple instances of a library. It doesn't usually help for math/algorithm/engine work. Then again, I haven't used it enough to be sufficiently enlightened.

...

What was the biggest stumbling block you faced whilst developing Build?

Network code. I must have had at least 5 versions of it - simply because I was learning as I was writing it. First, I realized the power of a synchronous protocol. Then I threw in interpolation. Then there was peer-peer vs. master/slave mode. Finally, there was local prediction. The teams were always struggling to implement my latest ideas, and especially in getting the game to stay in sync.

I am the younger of 2 brothers. According to my parents, I was born exactly at midnight on the night of Halloween (November 1, 1975). I was raised in Yorktown, NY until 1980 when my dad got a job as a professor at Brown University. So our family of 4 moved to a nice house in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, about a week before I started Kindergarten. My first computer was a TI-99/4A which my parents bought for $50 in December of 1983 during the "after Christmas" sale. Ever since then, I was hooked! (If you're really interested in how I got started, check out this long lost newspaper article from our local newspaper in 1984)

My family got me started in programming, but several years later I was beyond their help. In school, I used to love study halls because I would spend the time thinking about code. When my brother got shipped off to college in 1990, my hobby started to get more serious. I made games such as Kentris, Sibros, and Ken's Labyrinth (my first game on the market). In 1993, just a month before my first semester at college, I signed a contract with Apogee software to create a new 3D engine called the "Build engine".

My programming wasn't supposed to get in the way of college, but that's not the way it happened - I didn't do very well that first semester. When I found out I only passed half my classes, my dad decided to let me take time off to work full time for Apogee. So for 3 years I worked on the Build engine. While I spent more than half my time in RI, I ended up taking a total of 10 trips to Dallas and Seattle to help the game teams work with my code. After several games were released, things quieted down a bit and eventually I decided (with a lot of help from the parents) to return to college while I was still young.

College was fun while it lasted. Now I'm back to recreational programming full time. :)

When I show off demos, people often ask me which "computer courses" I've taken. I have to tell them the truth, which is "None!" Beyond the basics, I figured out almost everything I know about programming on my own. By starting young and being independent, I have the advantages of a better understanding and more experience.

Everyone in my family works in a technical field. My dad is a professor of electrical engineering at Brown and my mom works at GTech programming character recognition for lottery tickets. My brother is the head of his own small company, called Advanced Systems. (That's what "advsys" stands for) In the old days, he was as much of a computer nut as I was. He still is, but we've grown into separate fields of interest. For me, programming is not just an interest or a hobby - it IS my life.