Who am I?

I am a 19-year-old computer programmer / web developer / writer / artist / soccer player / dabbler in many things who was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada (though I grew up in Peterborough, Ontario). My interests are wide-ranging. Computers and technology have formed the core of most of my more studious "hobbies" for quite some time.

I'm in my second year of a Computer Science major / Fine Arts minor at the University of Waterloo. I do website design and web app development on the side, and am in the process of starting up a business with my brother. I played rep soccer in Peterborough for a number of years. I also am the designer/maintainer of the Peterborough City Soccer Association website.

Art

I've been doing art as a school-based activity ever since I could take art classes, but never considered it a central part of my personality and interests until recently. Somewhere around grade 11 and 12 I realized that I wanted to continue doing art, even after high school. In grade 12 I began exploring some doodling techniques I had been developing during my other classes; this lead to the first piece in a style I have called "discrete" art: Modern Interpretation of Discrete Forms.

For more information on my art, visit the Art section of my portfolio.

Computers

I started out on computers by playing with DOS as a kid. That entailed the usual DOS gaming, but also batch scripting, QBASIC (a few other BASICs), etc. I also dabbled in Visual Basic in Windows. Around grade 7 or 8 I was introduced to Linux, and before long it became my primary operating system.

These days I dabble in PHP, Python, and Java primarily, alongside my web development (HTML, JavaScript, CSS). I have a keen desire for simplicity and clarity of code (this includes choosing appropriate designs for a problem -- ie, not over-engineering); I like an elegant solution over a kludge. And, unlike the stereotypical programmer, I am a proficient commenter, and always have been. My comments come before my code.

My computer usage also extends to the artistic domain in the form of website designs and my "discrete" art. I currently am occupied both by art, website and web application design (for myself and for money), and miscellaneous programming projects on the side.