Vesa Karvonen

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If we are to believe MBTI tests, Vesa is an INTJ. He has been like that probably since late 1978-1979, because, according to some sources, it takes 2-3 years to develop the basic temperament. Previously he saw himself mostly as a "builder of systems" and "applier of theoretical models", but nowadays he is beginning to see the "mastermind" aspect of his personality. As a "Free-Thinker", his mind hardly ever rests.

Vesa enjoys healthy and sustainable ways of life. He is a vegetarian and likes cooking. Exercise is a daily part of his life - he needs to be in good shape in order to sit all day in work. He likes going to the gym, swimming, spinning, running, roller skating, etc... He also practices dancing.

For the past years, he has been working in a small company that develops console games. His role is the development of software technology, such as class libraries, frameworks and tools, for making games. He doesn't see himself as a game or a graphics programmer, although he has been involved in quite a few such projects. For the past few years, most of his programming has been in C++, but recently he has also enjoyed writing some Ocaml.

He likes buying technical books using the company credit card, but lately he hasn't had the time to read as much as he would like (hopefully this changes soon). He likes reading (a lot) computer science and software engineering, but also psychology, philosophy and various self-help books, because he knows that all the really hard problems are social - not technical. Fantasy is also close to his heart.

Vesa is a bit ambivalent about his university studies. He is a self-educated programmer and has experience ranging from bit twiddling to generative programming and also leading of small teams. Like many of his close colleagues, he sees that the depth of computer science education, at least in Finland, is, frankly, insufficient. He'll probably complete his studies some day, because sadly most people respect authority by rank, title or publication far more than he does.

Vesa is an eXtreme Programmer. He has found out that in order for pair programming to work, both pairs must share a similar level of experience and must be both willing and able to externalize their thoughts. If he is sometimes forced to stop refactoring, he'll probably quit his job. He thinks that optimization, including improving readability and simplifying structure, is the root of all fun in programming. He dislikes writing documentation and reports that are never read.

One of his friends coerced him to use the image that you see on this page. The image was scanned from a rather worn out picture taken by an ex-girlfriend and is probably the only picture of Vesa having his natural smile. Vesa is neither married nor engaged, but just recently he met a very nice girl... While programming is interesting and fun, it is love that really makes him happy. ;)