Hi, I'm Oran Looney. You can contact me at .

Programming

I love programming. With code, the idea is the form. As soon as you've fully expressed your ideas, they become real. Mathematicians and philosophers never get that feedback: their ideas stay ideas. Scientists and architects do eventually see theirs brought to life, but only months or years later. But I get to see mine come to life as I type, and that's enormously satisfying.

I didn't choose this profession until relatively late in life. Before that, I bummed around colleges, picking up masters' degrees in both math and physics, coding and reading philosophy in my spare time, and generally immersing myself in the western tradition of rational thought. When it came time to make myself useful, I looked back over all the projects I'd done and asked myself, "where have I really excelled? Where have I really had fun?" The clear answer was the time I'd spent writing numerical computations and simulations, or just playing around with languages. So, I resolved to make a career of it. It was the right decision: work and play became one, to the betterment of both.

Sci-Fi

I used to dream about writing science fiction. I had the "science" part down, but the "fiction" didn't go so well. (Somehow, a detailed discussion of the practical challenges of interstellar travel isn't as interesting as space cowboys roping star-cows with laser lassos.) Now I write these essays. Maybe I'll write a technical book or two someday.

Specialty

If asked what my specialty is, I wouldn't say "C++" or "web development," although those certainly fit. No, I'd say "pragmatic," after the software craftsman described in The Pragmatic Programmer. Programming isn't about sitting down in front of your keyboard and producing a certain number of lines of Language X each day: it's about delivering a working product within real-world constraints to solve a real problem.

To get there, a Pragmatic programmer uses any tool, any language, any technique. They automate everything. Every day they go into work and ask, "What can I do, right now, to make as much progress as possible towards shipping a great product?" Basically, it means taking off your blinders and applying your brains and software development experience to solving the meta-problem of the project.

It's a lot of fun, and it's also an incredibly effective attitude.

Bio

I'm married to the most beautiful girl in the world. Karen and I live in Madison, Wisconsin, where she working on her master's degree at UW. We have a boy named Jonathan. Wisconsin is gorgeous six months out of the year, and perfect for staying inside and programming the other six.

I never went to high school: I enrolled in a computer programming class at the local community college when I was 13, the summer after I finished junior high, and just kind of stuck around. By age 16 I had an associates of science degree and was off to college. When I tell this story, people tend to fall into one of two camps: either they say that I was lucky because high school is such a waste of time, or they say I'm unlucky because I never got to socialize with my peers. So I guess no one feels they learned anything much in their high school classes, which is kind of sad.

Interests

I read a lot. A quick count of the number of computer books on my shelf shows I read about one a month. Beyond that, I maintain a layman's interest in evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology. I read a lot of philosophy as a grad student, but gave it up before it did any permanent damage.

I like computer languages; I've written a couple toy languages, and am interested in the many young languages out there. I believe the future of software is multi-language applications, with core functionality in optimized machine code and the UI and other high level functionality in script. I'm heavily into Python, and am exploring C++'s Boost library.

I have the unfortunate tendency to lecture. Recently I've tried to direct that urge towards these essays instead of inflicting myself upon friends and family.