Trivia
Opening Quote
The quote "If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all" was attributed to Michelangelo in non-specialist publications as early as 1929, but no source is known. It's not found in any known biography of Michelangelo. Se non è vero, è ben trovato
Parenthood
Many times I had to combine writing code with parenting. This is me working on a desktop computer with Inigo (born in 1996) and Jago (born in 1997)
© private collection Lowagie-Willaert
Unemployment
VDAB is the Flemish Service for Employment and Vocational Training. If you're unemployed, you can follow several courses for free. In 1996-97, I followed a five-day course in general business management, a communication training, and a training consisting of five months theory and seven months of practice that resulted in a certification as GIS-IT engineer.
Internship
I applied for the GIS-IT training with this letter:
This is a paper copy of the
Introduction to OO and C++
tutorial I wrote during my internship:
Java
I still own a copy of the book I used to learn how to code in Java. It's quite worn out.
Book Quotes
- It's easier to train physicists, bioengineers, civil engineers, etc in software development than to teach developers physics, bioengineering, or civil engineering.
- I remember the server breaking down seconds before I was supposed to give a demo in front of the assembled press. Fortunately, I had a backup plan. While rehearsing the demo, I had created an offline version of all the internet pages I planned to show. With the server down, I decided to present the world wide web by loading the pages from my hard disk instead of from the internet. Cold sweat was running down my spine, but none of the journalists noticed that I wasn’t online. All of them were amazed by the speed of the solution.
Soundtrack for this Chapter
I listen to music, but my taste in music is questionable. I've selected a handful of songs for every chapters. Sometimes, there's a link to the chapter, sometimes I just like the song.
- Je vole, Louane (movie: La famille Bélier)
- Housewive, Daan
- Kids, MGMT
- The Sound of C, Confettis
- Killing Me Softly, The Fugees