The Geek Talk

Who is Marius Danciu?

I’m a programmer coming from Java world. I’ve been designing and architecting server side applications for more then 8 years. I fell in love with Scala a few years ago and for more than 2 years I’m a LiftWeb comitter enjoying every minute of it. I’m a co-author for “The Definitive Guide To Lift” book. I’m also a father for about 10 days.

Ruby or Scala? and why?

I haven’t done much Ruby, mostly read about it. I’ve done Scala, Java and C++, C in the past. The answer can only be Scala. because of performance, flexibility, functional conciseness, strong type system, concurrency and lots of other things.

About Lift?

Lift is a growing framework both in adoption and features. I started with Lift as an excuse to exercise Scala. It worked beautifully. Then Lift became much more for me as it is a rewarding experience solving problems, adding new features and seeing people using them and enjoying them. I strongly believe that Lift delivers ease of use combined with performance and reliability.

What does your typical day look like?

Wake up, get dressed and off to work. I don’t use Lift and Scala that much at work though I’d love to. I’m mainly working on a Java based server with various native integrations. About 6 o’clock I’m heading home were I’m taking the father and husband role. When I get some spare time I’m coding for Lift. I also constantly reading articles, papers, specifications mostly around Scala.
In weekends I dedicate a few hours for Lift or if my backlog is not that full experimenting with Scala.

What do you do in your free time?

In some weekend I’m playing ping-pong with my friends. Other times I’m playing the guitar but mostly coding or spend time with my family.

Current favorite apps?

Sun Virtual Box, emacs, eclipse

What OS do you prefer?

Linux Ubuntu for dev but I also have Windows 7 for media mostly.

Small picture for your Workplace?

Favorite: Language, JS Framework?

Scala and JQuery.

Name something that has inspired you recently?

Monads. I’ve been digging into category theory for understanding monads and their laws. It is interesting that these concepts do not enjoy more adoption in practice. Most likely due to theory – practice gap and programmers have a different mindset than mathematicians.

What are your personnel projects and goals for 2010?

Continue with Scala & Lift. I’m currently working on adding COMET support for REST API.