18 Oct Meet the Bakers: Luc van den Brand
Luc van de Brand is another member of the Game Bakery. Finishing his MSc degree in Computing Science at RUG University, his specialties are software architecture, clean code and in general designing robust systems capable of evolving through expanding requirements and demands. His key drive however, is enabling creativity through technology.
Luc van den Brand
Hello World! My name is Luc van den Brand. Currently I’m finishing my MSc degree in computing science, whilst also doing some research on L-Systems and Language theory.
I met Job after a few years of working for the RUG. The realisation of what life as an academic might be was draining my motivation at that point in time. Being the unstoppable rule-breaking rebel I am, I decided to sneakily work on a small video-game whilst supervising Tutorials as a Teaching Assistant. Job saw this, and consequently introduced me to the Game Bakery. I founded my own company as a freelance software engineer only a few months after. I founded my own company as a freelance software engineer only a few months after.
The game, like many do, never became more than an open-source project. However the work I was (and am) able to perform made sure I had more than enough of a creative outlet. As an unexpected consequence, I also started to re-appreciate my academic career.
My time at the university has taught me to handle projects on an architectural scale. Large and/or complex projects are thoroughly analysed, researched and planned, taking into account the latest academic advancements before making any kind of rash decisions or simply following whatever technology is popular these days. This academic training has always given me an edge when it comes to designing and writing robust code. Of course, the converse is also true: working in the game industry has taught me the benefits of agility and spontaneity. The most important thing for any programmer to learn, however, remains the importance of empathy for your colleagues. Not only you should have fun in your own profession, creatives need to be equally enthusiastic about what the code enables them to do.
How does Luc combine creativity in his work and studies? See it at his website, GitHub, Twitter or LinkedIn!