DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Partner Zones AWS Cloud
by AWS Developer Relations
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Partner Zones
AWS Cloud
by AWS Developer Relations
Building Scalable Real-Time Apps with AstraDB and Vaadin
Register Now

Trending

  • Building A Log Analytics Solution 10 Times More Cost-Effective Than Elasticsearch
  • RBAC With API Gateway and Open Policy Agent (OPA)
  • Build a Simple Chat Server With gRPC in .Net Core
  • Managing Data Residency, the Demo

Trending

  • Building A Log Analytics Solution 10 Times More Cost-Effective Than Elasticsearch
  • RBAC With API Gateway and Open Policy Agent (OPA)
  • Build a Simple Chat Server With gRPC in .Net Core
  • Managing Data Residency, the Demo
  1. DZone
  2. Popular
  3. Open Source
  4. Dev of the Week: Hernâni Cerqueira

Dev of the Week: Hernâni Cerqueira

Alec Noller user avatar by
Alec Noller
·
Jul. 02, 14 · Interview
Like (1)
Save
Tweet
Share
9.59K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

Every week here and in our newsletter, we feature a new developer/blogger from the DZone community to catch up and find out what he or she is working on now and what's coming next. This week we have something a little bit different, though: Hernâni Cerqueira, Lead Software Engineer for DZone and AnswerHub. He is also a husband and father, and lives in Arcos de Valdevez, Portugal.

1.   What have you been working on lately?

I’ve mostly been working on the next DZone website, which we expect will be awesome and make DZone even more interesting and fun to use.

2.   You've been the Lead Software Engineer for DZone and AnswerHub for a few years now. What was the biggest development challenge you faced during that time? How did you solve it?

AnswerHub by itself was a huge challenge. We wanted a fast and scalable application, but at the same time we wanted ultimate flexibility, and it’s a well known fact that flexibility usually comes with a big cost in terms of performance, and that was very challenging. I believe that to some extent we achieved those goals, and that’s the reason AnswerHub powers such a diverse group of communities for a lot of happy customers. But to be honest, the biggest challenge of them all was (and still is) to force myself to think less as a developer and more as a user, and think about the user experience first. I don’t think I've solved that issue yet, but I’m learning, and find myself more and more stuck on trying to make it easy.

3.   Are there any particular developer tools or resources you couldn't live without?

I’m very flexible, and can adapt very quickly to any tool/framework/programming language/methodology, but I’ve been spoiled by good IDEs and that’s probably the thing I would miss the most if I had to go back in time. Code autocompletion (can’t possibly remember all those names), syntax highlighting (so much easier to read), quick navigation and good refactoring capabilities are a must for me nowadays, so I can keep focusing on the problem I’m solving and not on finding my way around the project.

4.   Do you have a favorite open source project (or projects) that you've contributed to recently?

I occasionally contribute with my own findings or patches for various open source projects that we use, but I haven’t really been active on the open source community since I stopped being active in the OSQA project, AnswerHub’s little brother. I’m still very proud of it and blush with pride whenever some Google search takes me to an OSQA-based community.

5.   Do you follow any blogs or Twitter feeds that you would recommend to developers?

I don’t have much time to follow anything in particular with greater attention. I follow a few mailing lists of projects  that we use, and I obviously follow DZone.com, which is a great source of developer-related material.

6.   Did you have a coding first love -- a particular program, gadget, game, or language that set you on the path to life as a developer?

When I was in elementary school, my parents bought a 386 machine running MS-DOS 3. Supposedly, my father was going to take a computer course, but he got tired of it quickly, so I adopted the computer for my own purposes. All it had inside was MS-DOS and Quick Basic, which had two example games, one named Nibbles, if I’m not mistaken, similar to the famous snakes game in old nokia phones, and another named Gorillaz, where where two gorillas would throw explosive bananas at each other. I played those games a lot, and then I started digging into their source code and doing some modifications of my own. I knew them both from end to end. Then I started creating my own simple games, and that was my favorite toy for a long time.

7.   Is there anything else you'd like to mention?

Nothing in particular.


Thanks, Hernâni!

dev Open source

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Trending

  • Building A Log Analytics Solution 10 Times More Cost-Effective Than Elasticsearch
  • RBAC With API Gateway and Open Policy Agent (OPA)
  • Build a Simple Chat Server With gRPC in .Net Core
  • Managing Data Residency, the Demo

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com

Let's be friends: