Damian Conway

Damian Conway

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

Life

Conway studied electrical engineering and computer science at Monash University in Melbourne from 1983 and worked as a private lecturer. In 1986 he graduated with a Bachelor of Science with distinction and then researched algorithms for drawing three-dimensional shapes without specialized hardware . Since 1991 he has also worked as a lecturer and obtained his doctorate in computer science in 1993.

He then worked as a programmer, customer advisor, researcher, tutor and until 2005 held a chair at Monash University for object-oriented programming . Starting in 2001, he was funded by the Perl Foundation for 20 months to write or improve several influential Perl modules and to discuss this work at Perl conferences. After this phase he founded his own company ( Thoughtstream ), which mainly organizes advanced training courses with him as a lecturer.

Act

Damian Conway's research papers were concerned at first, especially with graphic rendering - algorithms , later with the syntax of programming languages, especially object-oriented syntax. For example, he published a draft with Ben Werther to improve C ++ ( Significantly Prettier and Easier C ++ Syntax ).

His first book also dealt with object-oriented programming ( OOP for short ) in Perl and is considered a reference. Conway's thesis: "Perl is particularly versatile in OOP" generated a sensation because it came from a proven expert, but contradicted the general perception that other languages ​​are better suited for OOP. Even among Perl users, who traditionally use OOP relatively sparingly, he promoted this type of programming with this book and associated lectures. Conway helped as an editor for many well-known Perl titles and tried to stimulate a broad discussion with his highly regarded, second book ( Perl Best Practices ), which rules in Perl make a good programming style. This was particularly important to him, as Perl grants a lot of freedom according to the motto TIMTOWTDI , but certain standards that make programming much easier in the longer term (in his opinion) should be used more frequently and consciously. Compliance with these standards can now be checked automatically using Jeffrey Thalhammer's module ( Perl :: Critic ).

For his contributions to the CPAN , he won the Larry Wall Award for Practical Utility three times (1998-2000). His module Lingua :: Romana :: Perligata (under Perligata) and his Perlscript called SelfGoL, a self-replicating implementation of the Game of Life that does without any structured programming elements and is hardly comprehensible even for experienced Perl programmers , received special attention .

Damian is also involved in the design of Perl 6 and wrote the exegeses that made the first compilations of the initial ideas ( called Apocalypses by Larry Wall ) available to a wider audience. Its module Parse :: RecDescent is considered to be the Perl 5 predecessor of the Perl 6 rules and Quantum :: Superpositions as the corresponding predecessor of the junctional operators in Perl 6.

Conway is considered a fun and informative speaker. At O'Reilly's Perl conference (now OSCON ) he usually speaks for a whole day on the so-called Conway Channel . His lectures regularly occupy the top places in the audience rating. The prize for the best paper for a technical lecture also bears his name there. He is also a member of the technical committee for this conference, but appears regularly at other conferences.

Works

• Damian Conway: Object Oriented Perl. Manning 2000, ISBN 978-1884777790 (English)
  • (in German at) Addison-Wesley 2001: Object-oriented programming with Perl. ISBN 3827318122
• Damian Conway: Perl - O'Reilly Best Practices 2006, ISBN 978-3897214545
• Damian Conway & Curtis O. Poe: Perl Hacks. Programming, Debugging, and Survival Tips and Tools O'Reilly 2006, ISBN 978-3897214743

Web links

Commons : Damian Conway  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Biography on the website of his company (English)
• Damian Conway's side at Monash University (English)
• List of his Perl modules in the CPAN