Software development - Profession and Passion

At the age of about 12 years I discovered my passion for programming. A quarter of a century later and with some job experience in that field I still love it. Even if the job sometime is only a job and not always exciting.
In my opinion, programming is a kind of art, just like poetry. Good program code - especially if object-oriented - has a special esthetic and is very nice to look at.

I finished my diploma (masters) in computer science in 1999 at Saarland University, and in 2001 and 2002 qualified in Texas as Sun Certified Java Programmer and Sun Certified Java Developer respectively, and worked during the past 25 years with more than a dozen programming languages both professionaly as well as for personal projects.
My favourite is the java programming language which I am using since 1996.

My employer is the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, DFKI GmbH, where I worked for most of my professional life (with two interruptions: Two years in Texas and one and a half year at Saarland Universitys Chair for AI, held by Prof. Wahlster).