Benjamin Schwerdtner

(λ☯)Clojure

Preaching and practicing interactive programming. I don't believe in any set of limitations. Clojure combines the wisdom of the ancient hackers, who discovered Lisp, with real-world tradeoffs and practicalities. The REPL, Emacs and Clojure together with functional, bottom-up, data oriented programming allow me to deliver more robust systems more quickly.

Did I mention I love the Joy of Clojure?

ΨThought

Thoughtfulness. Careful design. Empathy for your users and the next programmer alike. I try to share your vision of your product. I understand that technology is used by humans and built by humans.

I am constantly learning and improving my understanding of what makes a good tool. I believe software that works well is beautiful.

🫀Passion

Genuine interest in science and technology. Real goals for humantity. I give you a discount when I believe your project contributes to human flourishing. I don't accept buggy software and want to rid the world of it. I have FOSS bias because it leads to more useful, focused tools and it it aligns more strongly with my values.

🔍Technologist

Scientist at heart. I challenge my assumptions and go where the evidence leads me. Code is a series of best guesses. Imagination and note-taking are powerful tools of the mind. I am not ashamed of using anything to help me understand a problem. I speak up when I see anything amiss and document limitations with the software I produce.

🪙Track Record

• 5 years activism in the fight against poverty, raised $25M+ for charity.
• Products:
  • Mobile Minigames
    I worked on the mobile app.
  • Unity Hot Reload
    I worked on polishing the Roslyn worker and made it work on Mac + Linux.
• Countless Emacs and Clojure tooling FOSS contributions. Github.
• Worked with Borkdude (Babashka, Nbb, Scittle) and Bozhidar (Emacs Cider), sponsored by Nextjournal.

📚Stacks

Clojure(script)🗲, Emacs Lisp, Linux, shell, Babashka, Python, Javascript, Typescript, Golang, HTML, CSS, Git, Datomic postgres, AWS, graphql, docker, linode, REPL, datastructures and algorithms, logic programming, functional programming. 5 years C#. Made .Net MsBuild targets work in Anger on Linux and MacOs. I know enough of distrubuted systems to be paranoid.

I believe understanding the problem and the Art of keeping complex things simple are the most important aspect of programming.

⛏The Plan

• 1. You contact me with an initial pitch of your project.
• 2. We have a chat and see if I can share your vision and whether I can help you build it, free for you.
• 3. We might have multiple rounds of this because I might discover that XYZ is hard but XYB is feasible etc.
• 4. I come back to you with an offer 💰, on a per-project basis, depending on the complexity and operational requirements of the project.
• 5. If you are already a startup or Clojure workshop we can skip 3/4 and talk on per hour basis.
Q: What is human flourishing?
A: Something like a cool science tool, or the website for your NGO. I know it when I see it.
I reserve the right to decide that seemingly decoupled from any objective or subjective measures.