After so much time away from the magazine, we find that it was time for us to ask him about all the things he has been doing, and what's coming next for him related to his role at an important company in our industry, developer communities up and down the equator, and some tid-bits of his private life.
Hello, my friend.
Hey Buddy!
Most readers of our magazine will surely know you pretty well, but just for the benefit of the newcomers, please give us a little history of your life (you can skip the parts that were too sad or adult-only) <s>.
Well, I guess a big part of my history has been covered when I was interviewed by the magazine, over two years ago. Since then, I moved from Sao Paulo, Brazil, to Houston, U.S., in November of 2002, in order to join EPS Software Corp. as a Senior Developer, where I’ve been definitely having a great time.
I've also got to speak at great conferences and user groups in North America, wrote a bunch of articles, and as of April of 2004 I’ve become a C# MVP (used to be a VFP MVP since late 2001). I’m working on getting a full updated bio on my playground (I mean, personal web-site) at www.lassala.net/bio.
How is your life today in Houston? Tell me a typical working day, if there is such thing like a typical day to you.
Life’s being alright in Houston. It’s funny how I’ve had some American fellows coming to me asking: “so how do you feel moving from a small city to such a big city as Houston?”. Of course, they clearly don’t know Sao Paulo city <s>. I guess what I’m trying to say is that for someone coming from such a huge city as Sao Paulo, living in Houston is like living in a quiet farm. <s>
I don’t really have a typical day. Fortunately, I’m always doing different things everyday, and that’s why I love my job. In a whole week I might end up working writing code, designing and modeling software, writing articles, or anything else related to software development. While there are people who hates Sunday evening because they have to work on the next day, I’m kind of the opposite, since I really do my work passionately.
Are your neighbors complaining because of your electric guitar? I know you're playing again. How's the band going?
No problems with the neighbors yet; only with my wife <s>. Seriously, when I’m practicing at home, I either use my headphones or my 1-watt little Marshall amp, so no one can give me a hard time about. Of course, when I’m rehearsing with my band, I crank it up as loud as I can <s>.
The band is going alright. We’ve got a new drummer two months ago, but now that he’s caught up on our set list we’ll start gigging again soon. We’re also working on new songs that I’m really enjoying. The two things I do more passionately in life are software development and guitar playing. I can tell you that I’m very fortunate for making my living from one, and my hobby from the other one. Besides, good music helps me keeping my sanity, acquired by writing programs. <s>
I think that working at EPS should be fun and professionally fantastic. How do you feel working sorrounded by so many bright minds? Tell us who is working near you, please.
Fun? Do you know what slavery means <s>? I’m definitely joking. I couldn’t be happier. I love working at EPS. I always say that I don’t see the owners of EPS as my bosses, but instead, I see them as my friends, and therefore, if I screw up, I don’t screw up bosses, I screw up friends, and that’s something I’d really hate.
Figure 2: Rockin'
I know you're writing a lot in C# lately, but you were still using VFP the last time we talked. How's the percentage today?
More and more I’m concentrating my time in .NET (with C# preferably, but also with VB.NET). But I still do some VFP work such as development, mentoring, and consulting jobs. I’d say the percentage nowadays would be 90% .NET and 10% VFP.
Do you work with Milos? I think it is part a framework and part a methodology, but I'm not sure. Can you explain a bit about it?
Yes, I do work with Milos. In fact, I’ve been quite busy designing and writing pieces of Milos. Milos is what we call a Solution Platform. This platform comprises a framework, pre-build modules, processes, and many other pieces directly involved with building software. That’s what we use for developing software to our customers. Some more information about it can be found at www.eps-cs.com/milos/.
Besides your development work, you're often presenting at different user group meetings and events. Tell me about your presentations at the HAL-PC. Is it easy to cope with Terry Thurber, your unofficial marketing manager? <s>
Now, that’s a heck of a hard task <s>. All joking aside, the folks at Hal-PC VFP SIG have been great coping with me. I’ve been speaking there every other month this year, and I’m always happy with the possibility of sharing knowledge. Besides our local VFP user group, I’ve also spoken at the local .NET user group, and some great conferences such as DevTeach, DevEssentials, and DevCon. When I moved to the U.S., I’ve put in my head that I’d have to keep doing presentations, first because I love talking about things that I like and it’s even better when that can help someone else, and second because it keeps pushing me into improving my English (talking about complex technical topics such as OOP and N-Tier in a second language is not quite an easy task). Fortunately, people have been enjoying my talks, and that’s been reflecting on the great ratings I’ve been getting from the evaluations.
And now you are about to come back to Brazil for a few days to present at a conference, together with Markus, isn't it?
That’s right. After two years away from Brazil, I’m finally heading back in October, for what I think is a well-deserved vacation (during the last 7 years, I took 2 weeks of vacation, and that was 4 years ago… I *really* need to take some days off).
The timing was perfect, since a VFP conference will be held from October 22nd through 24th, and I couldn’t miss the chance to meet my old friends over there. And since Markus was looking into going to Brazil sometime, this was the best opportunity to do it. We’ll also be doing some .NET presentations at Microsoft on the day before the conference. And, obviously, we’re going to have some fun over there! <s>
Figure 3: Claudio presenting
Do you think you'll be able to avoid sushi being at São Paulo with Markus?
By all means <s>!!! With such great steak houses, Italian restaurants, and other great places for Brazilian food, I can’t even bear with the image of trying out sushi again. Actually, there’s a very traditional Japanese neighborhood in Sao Paulo, and I guess I should take him there. BUT, I’ll make sure I’ve gotten my share of food before going there, so that I’ll just be his companion.
Any perspective to return to the publishing side of the world? Upcoming articles or books planned?
I fell into the publishing side by accident. Since there wasn’t a VFP magazine in Portuguese, I did all I could in order to create some VFP content in Portuguese. When we merged the RapoZine magazine with the UTMag I was pretty happy, because the Portuguese content would continue and I would be able to dedicate my time on something else. I know how hard it is to keep the magazine going (gathering writers, translating, revising articles, etc.), and all I can say is that I’m very happy with the work that you, Rodolfo, Michel, and all my other folks have been doing with the UTMag. So, so, I don’t think I’ll be involved with publishing anytime soon.
As for articles or books: I’ve always wanted to write books, but never found time for it. Maybe I’ll do that someday, but not in the near future. However, I still write a huge deal of articles, and I like that, because it demands less time than writing a book. On my personal web-site (www.lassala.net) I have a list of all the articles I’ve had published, with links to many of them. Hopefully next year I’ll be able to write a new article for UTMag.
Now you know that I've taken note of that! <s> Well, Claudio, it has been a pleasure talking to you again, buddy. I hope you enjoy coming back home, at least for a few days. Take care!
Thank you, buddy. By the time I get back I might have put my blog online so that I can report some of my adventures at the motherland. ;)
