Software developer extraordinaire. Dutch by origin and still living in Amsterdam. Laurens is the co-founder and Chief Software Architect for Moonshake Technologies. He is also an active open source software developer, and has among other things written Open Wiki. He has recenltly released the first Ook# .NET compiler, that lets you compile the updated version of the Ook! programming language.
He has a tendency to rush off to Oz for extensive periods to visit friends and relatives, sometimes leaving a perfectly good job behind in the process.
So what did he study? He studied Computer Science at the Leiden University. Of course that was not enough, so he added some mathematics, philosophy and physics to the curriculum as well. At the same time he started working part time for local software company Prolin. After trying to combine work and studies for an extended time he decided that it was time to graduate, so he left Prolin.
That gave Laurens the time to work full time on his thesis about parallel computing and artificial intelligence. You know, genetic algorithms, neural networks and such things. The outcome was an honours degree.
After that he returned to Prolin, and after leaving for Australia a couple of times (OK, I might be exaggerating here, but it was at least once) he returned just in time to see Hewlett-Packard buy Prolin. So HP offered Laurens the role as Lead Architect for one of their OpenView products. Since then he hasn't really been able to stop being an architect. Software that is...
Laurens speaks many languages. On the programming front I know that he speaks C, C++, Perl, Java, Python, SQL, VB, and a plethora of other languages. One of his odd traits is that he doesn't drink coffee (!) but prefers herbal tea and other non-stimulants. And beer, of course. On top of that he's a very nice guy who likes to listen to Aphex Twin and Fatboy Slim, among others.
On the OpenWiki website he currently lists his interests as:
Last time I checked he was single (so any girls looking, hurry up)...
No matter what you might think, Laurens and blondino is not the same person, not even remotely