Damian Conway

Damian Conway ( born October 5, 1964 in Melbourne, Australia) is an Australian computer science professor, author, prominent Perl programmers and much sought-after speaker at industry conferences.

Life

Conway studied from 1983 at the Monash University in Melbourne electrical engineering and computer science and worked as a lecturer at the same time. In 1986 he finished his studies with a Bachelor of Science with honors and subsequently conducted research at algorithms for drawing three-dimensional shapes without specialized hardware. Since 1991 he also worked as a lecturer and his PhD in 1993 in computer science.

He then worked as a programmer, client advisor, researcher, tutor and held until 2005 a professor at Monash University for object -oriented programming held. In 2001, he was for 20 months funded by the Perl Foundation to write several influential Perl modules or to improve and talk to Perl conferences on this work. After this period, he founded his own company ( Thought Stream), which mainly organized training courses with him as a lecturer.

Work

Damian Conway's scientific studies were concerned initially primarily with graphic rendering algorithms, and later with the syntax of programming languages, particularly object-oriented syntax. He published, for example, with Ben Werther a draft to improve C ( Significantly Prettier and Easier C syntax).

His first book also dealt with object-oriented programming ( OOP briefly ) in Perl and applies it as a reference. Conway's thesis: " Perl is particularly versatile in OOP " sensation produced, because they came from a proven expert, but the general perception contradicted, after which other languages ​​are better suited for OOP. Even within the Perlnutzer that the OOP used traditionally relatively sparingly, he campaigned with this book and accompanying lectures for this type of programming. Conway helped as a lecturer at many well-known Perl titles and tried with his much acclaimed second book (Perl Best Practices) to encourage a broad discussion which rules in Perl make a good programming style. This was especially important to him because Perl gives according to the motto TIMTOWTDI many freedoms, but certain standards that facilitate programming in the longer term should be used very frequently and conscious ( in his view ). Compliance with these standards may now be using Jeffrey Thalhammer 's modulus (Perl :: Critic ) checked automatically.

For his contributions in the CPAN, he won three times the Larry Wall Award for Practical Utility ( 1998-2000). Special attention was given its module Lingua :: Romana :: Perligata ( under Perligata ) and his perl script called SelfGoL, a self-replicating implementation of the Game of Life, which does not require any structured programming elements and even for experienced Perl programmers is hardly comprehensible.

Damian is also involved in the design of Perl 6 and wrote the exegesis, the first compilations of the initial ideas made ​​a wider audience (called by Larry Wall apocalypses ). His module Parse :: RecDescent is considered the forerunner of the Perl 5 Perl 6 rules and Quantum :: Superpositions as appropriate precursor of junktiven operators in Perl 6

Conway is considered entertaining and informative speaker. On O'Reilly's Perl Conference ( OSCON today ), he speaks mostly a whole day in the so-called Conway Channel. His lectures show regularly defined top places in the handset rankings. There also carries the prize for the best paper at a technical lecture his name. He is also a member of the technical committee of the conference, but appears regularly on other conferences.

Works

  • Damian Conway: Object Oriented Perl. Manning 2000, ISBN 978-1884777790 (English) ( in German with ) Addison -Wesley 2001: Object-Oriented Programming with Perl. ISBN 3827318122
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