Thomas Sommer, Computer Science (Dipl)

Pragmatic Programmer

Tom discovered the joy of programming late – in his last year of Highschool – even though computers became a part of his life 10 years before that time. He tries to solve problems with the least effort, playing on the knife edge of the virtue of lazyness which (combined with the sad fact that he doesn’t drink coffee) sometimes stops him from being hyperproductive.

Skills

Languages

Starting with Java in his Uni days, he was able (and lucky) to skip the C train. From there, it was a straight path to Ruby and Rails which he has been using for more than 2 years. Apart from RoR, Tom always tries to learn new stuff – especially in the World of Web Programming – starting with almost all Javascript frameworks to entering the world of Flash/Flex.

Coding

Tom loves 2 things when it comes to coding: Elegant code and green bars when running RSpec. While trying to achieve the first part, he is almost never satisfied with his code (unless its a one liner!) and looking at older code gives him goosebumps. Sometimes he tries to shorten the code too much, but maintaining a very high test coverage (with RSpec and Cucumber) while doing BDD prevents him from screwing up the code completely.

Off Time

Tom is an athlete! Playing Basketball 2-4 times and going to the gym at least 3 times a week is his way to get away from work. He also believes that a good work/life balance is necessary to perform at your peak, so he doesn’t try to think about work when he’s outside the office too much.