Work
My work so far allowed me to familiarize myself with a variety of diverse technologies and methods. I was lucky to work on projects that encompassed the entire spectrum from interfacing with kernel APIs at the bottom layer to designing user-facing visualization and interaction at the top.
Since 2019 Rust is gradually replacing C++ as my main working language and as of 2022 I consider myself primarily Rust developer.
I also had extensive professional opportunities to pursue my passion for automating my environment and acquired a preference for reliability and comprehensibility of software design in the process.
2022–present | Vernaio, Munich Software Engineer, Rust. |
2014–2022 | Intra2net AG, Tübingen Software development in Rust, C++, C, Bash, Python. |
Software Development
Since 2005 I have been using Linux exclusively on all my laptops, desktops, routers, and Raspberry Pis. I have been involved in maintaining a custom Linux distribution as part of my regular job at Intra2net AG since 2014. The distributions with whose administration I am familiar include NixOS which I contribute to occasionally, Arch, Maemo, OpenWRT, Debian (this server), and Fedora (work).
Operating Systems | Linux (primary), Windows (working knowledge and severe allergy) |
Professional | Rust, C, C++, Lua, TEX, Bash, Python |
Miscellaneous | OCaml, Erlang, and others |
Public code | → Gitlab | → Github | → CTAN |
I have contributed to a number of free software / open source projects both professionally and outside work. A number of my personal projects received their own brief section on this site. Some further projects I’ve contributed to are the Linux kernel, Samba, tig, nixpkgs, LuaTEX, a TEX engine written in C, as well the LaTEX and ConTEXt formats (TEX and Lua in harmonic coexistence).
Since 2014 I am also maintaining a fully automated Git repository and mirror for the ConTEXt project to compensate for the lack of upstream use of source control.
Education
As a historian, my primary area of interest used to be medieval History of Russia, Lithuania, and Poland. In addition, I have a deep passion for the history of science, which is probably the topic I have read most about outside the professional context. On the practical side I like working with sources directly – translation, textual criticism etc. – and aim for improving the craft of historiography through digital methods.
2012 | M. A. with distinction (final grade: 1.0) Magister thesis: “The Consequences of the Administrative Reforms of the Grand Principalities of Lithuania and Muscovy in the 15th and 16th Centuries for Their Common Border” (translated title). Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Joachim Rogall. |
2003–2012 | Heidelberg University History of Eastern Europe, Philosophy, Latin |
2008–2009 | Palacký University, Olomouc Scholarship of the Deutsch-Tschechischer Zukunftsfonds (Duration: 2 semesters) |
2007–2008 | Masaryk University, Brno Erasmus scholarship (Duration: 1 semester) |
1994–2002 | Gymnasium Luisenstift, Radebeul Secondary education; Abitur 2002 |
While at university I first studied History of Eastern Europe and Philosophy only. After taking the obligatory Latin course in the first two semesters, which was a fascinating experience, I took on Latin as a minor subject as well. Initially I kept Philosophy as major but after I had the opportunity to take a course on medieval Novgorod in 2010, I switched it for History. In the end I graduated with a Magister (roughly equivalent to an MA) thesis on 15th century Lithuania and Muscovy.
I had the pleasure to stay abroad in Czech Republic twice: Thanks to the Erasmus program I studied Latin at the Department of Classical Studies in Brno for the fall semester of 2007. Only half a year later I was awarded a full-year stipend by the German-Czech Future Fund and chose to study history in the City of Olomouc.
Languages
At any time during my university years I was learning at least one language, be it natural or artificial. To save brain space I prefer languages with grammatical rules of high generality; properties like strong inflection and predictable accents make Latin and West Slavic languages very attractive.
Since 2015 I am actively learning French, albeit primarily in an informal manner: the vocabulary acquired so far may be biased towards different kinds of cheese.
Latin | Latinum certificate, degree in Latin Language | ≈8 years |
Ancient Greek | Graecum certificate | ≈1 year |
Czech | fluent: reading, writing, speaking | >5 years |
Polish | advanced: reading, writing, speaking | >2 years |
Russian | advanced: reading | >5 years |
French | intermediate | ≈3 years; DELF B2 (2018) |
Native language: German. Proficiency and routine in English (TOEFL score 112 in 2018). (Don’t bother asking me for further certificates unless you are willing to pay for the certification.)
Other languages that I have a working proficiency in with but which are less trivial to rate: Varieties of Old German: historical dialects of High and Low German as used in Livonia, in Prussia, and by the Hansa. Historical Slavic languages: Old Church Slavonic, Old Russian, Ruthenian (i. e. the official language of the chancellery of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania; Old Belarusian/Ukrainian etc.), early modern Polish.
Miscellaneous
My passion for books manifests extends to the craft of making them – typesetting and typography. My tool of choice for realizing high typographical demands is TEX. A long-time LaTEX user, I was made aware of ConTEXt at the Heidelberg TEX Stammtisch in late 2009 and it has quickly become my main format. Lately I have begun investigating into Knuth’s Plain format because it imposes less restrictions on layout manipulation, which is required for parallel typesetting (text streams as is common in e. g. multi-language documents).
2012 | Tutor of the course “The Typesetting System LaTEX” Heidelberg University, Institute of Computer Science / Chair for Database Systems Research (Prof. Gertz) |
2009– | Member of DANTE e. V. (German language TEX user group) |