About this blog

It's a programmer's job to turn vagueness into clarity. The process of turning imprecise requirements into clear functional specifications and working software is really a special form of translation. Unless you work only for your own enjoyment, a programmer cannot afford to be bad at language, or a lot will get lost in translation. Machines and humans are not a comfortable fit, and that is what this blog is dedicated to.

About myself

I'm Jasper Sprengers. I live in the port of Rotterdam, the Netherlands. My first forays in computer programming started with coding the game of hangman on the Commodore VIC20 during my early teenage years. Having studied English literature and general linguistics I didn't return to programming until 1997, when I worked as an English teacher in rural China for Voluntary Service Overseas and built my first web site. Since then I have moved on from HTML, JavaScript, server-side Perl and PHP to Java and databases.

I have always been more interested in higher level programming language and the process of software design than in system administration, hardware or operating system sectarianism.

Anything else?

Yes, there is more to me than Java and Oracle, but you won't find it here. I like reading, photography and I am an enthusiastic classical singer and amateur actor, but I think the articles here are quite enough self-indulgence.