Alex Gaynor
Who is Alex Gaynor?
I’m a junior computer science student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. I’m a software developer, I do mostly web stuff professionally, but I’m very interested in compilers and interpreters so I contribute to projects like Django and PyPy.
Where and when did you start programming?
This is a huge cliche (especially since I saw Eric Florenzano said the same thing in his interview), but when I was younger I wanted to create video games so I got a Visual Basic 6 book and spent a few months learning it, then dropped it completely for a number of years. Then when I was 16 I picked up PHP and haven’t stopped programming since.
Why Python/Django?
Both were really intuitive to me in a way that no other tools have been, they appeal to me in both technical and aesthetic ways, and most importantly. I have a ton of fun using them, which isn’t something I can say for a lot of other languages and tools.
You favorite IDE. JS Framework?
I don’t really use an IDE in the usual sense of the term, but my primary text editor is Gedit. jQuery is definitely my go to JS toolkit, it makes dealing with the DOM almost pleasant.
What does your typical day look like?
Since I’m a full time student these very pretty wildly, but mostly I spend the hour or so after I wake up reviewing everything that happened over night, checking my emails, looking at the news, and reading through commits on various projects. Then I’ll either have class followed by work, or just work. Then I spend my evenings either contributing to various open source projects, working on some of my own stuff, or wasting time.
What do you do in your free time?
I contribute to open source projects like Django and PyPy, work on some of my own open source projects, and hack on various side projects. I also co-host DjangoDose and help out with the PyCon program committee.
Current favorite apps?
Firefox4, Gedit, Textual, Shutter, DropBox.
What OS do you prefer?
I run all 3 major OSs on a day-to-day basis, Ubuntu and OS X are tied at the top (with Ubuntu winning slightly for programming stuff), and Windows 7 in a really distant third.
Small picture for your Workplace?
Name something that has inspired you recently?
It wasn’t any one thing, but the other day I happened to wake up really early and decided I would put the time to good use and have a side project started and launched in under 12 hours. So really seeing all kinds of smart people actually get things launched was inspiring.
What do you prefer (and why)? Freelance work or full time employment?
I’ve never technically done full time employment (besides an internship I guess), but it’s definitely a tradeoff. With freelance work you tend to see a bunch of different projects, never spending a huge amount of time with any of them, and with full time you’re committed to the same project for forever. So for now I’m happy to see tons of different things, but in the future I’ll probably want to settle down and get to work at the long term health of a project.
What are your personal projects and goals for 2011?
I have a side project I just launched that I want to continue to grow, and another side project I’m really excited to launch soonish. Other than seeing those grow I want to continue to make time to hack on open source stuff, particularly I intend to work on getting Django working on Python3.
