Darius Blasband's home page
- Born in Brussels, September 26th 1965. So, you can guess I am
40
years old (time flies, doesn't it ?). When James Dean was my age, he had
been dead for the last 15 years.
- Degree in Computer Science from ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles),
followed by my PhD thesis which I finished only recently.
I used to scientific collaborator (which is a modern form of slavery in which
one is not even entitled to gratitude or consideration) in that same university,
but that part of my life is over. Now, everytime I think of them, I transform.
- Single (So far), or stated more accurately, I am not married, but I have
a girl friend, who's nice, and even better, thinks I'm cool too. I guess
that referring to her as my girl friend is a bit misleading, as she is the mother
of the two (soon three) kids we have together.
- I also have the cutest daughter in the world. Her name is Nina. You can
put yourself on the waiting list to enjoy the ultimate privilege of baby-sitting her, by
sending a mail here.
- The cutest daughter in the world has the sweetest brother
ever, named Julien Arthur Clement
Blasband, born on January the 15th 2003.
- Nina and Julien
have got a baby brother named Benjamin Paul Raoul, born 1st of
december 2005. And for those of you who wonder where this fertility bonanza is
going to stop, it just did. We don't plan to have more than the three kids we
already have and enjoy immensely.
In any case, you can enjoy a number of recent and not-so-recent
pictures here.
- Co-manager of PhiDaNi Sofware, based in Brussels, with my two excellent
friends Juan Pablo Diez Perez and Alain Corchia
- I happen to have a musical activity, far beyond what should be
reasonable for a decent hobby.
You can have a look at
The Legend of the Toad
which is my most recent project in this area.
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Hello !
The picture above is a tribute to my grandpa Leo's opinion, who used to say that I deserved
twenty years of jail without trial whenever I sneaked into the kitchen to grab a piece
of chocolate. However, just in case you wondered, this picture is a fake. Not only
because, despite my grandpa, I never went to prison, but mostly, because these suspenders
are not really mine.
Oh! And by the way, here is a (slightly) ajusted version of this picture
(courtesy of my cousin Ali):
Looks familiar, huh ? Then, another Ali (not a cousin, but as close as a
cousin one can get, he even calls my mother "Auntie") completed the
transformation:
Amazing, isnt'it ?
It is pretty common for personal home pages such as this one to include hobbies and
links to other sites.
Well, I mentioned music and writing above...
Other than than, in almost random order, I like computing, friends, logic programming, Bud
Powell, my family, playing the Piano, Mozart, formal methods, music, programming languages,
Astor Piazzola, Toni Morrisson, la "Tour d'Argent" which is Hau's excellent
restaurant, Horovitz playing Scarlatti. I enjoy Albert Cohen, Jacques Brel, Unix, Ismail
Kadaré, optimization techniques, Chopin, Len Deighton, friends again, Donald Knuth's
writing, Norman Mailer, Richard Galliano, Kusturica, Object-orientation, Scriabin, Paul
Auster, jokes, Shostakovitch, constraint programming, Glenn Gould playing Bach, parser
generators, Georges Brassens, Artango, Michel Portal, John Irving, compilers, friends,
always.
I am a Harry Potter fan - but not a maniac. I just read the books and watch the
movies when they come out. I don't speak muggletalk...
I should also mention that I happen to be fortunate enough to know Roby Lakatos,
who's a fantastic musician and a great person. Doing music with a guy like that is
a blessing, to say the least.
I'm also totally crazy about my daughter Nina. I turn into a (admittedly,
odd-shaped) carpet when I see her. It did not take ages for Julien to get the trick
as well.
Well, I
think that's about it.
I almost forgot: I am also a Calvin & Hobbes fan. I would have liked to include a
scanned picture of them, something funny deliberately disconnected from whatever has to do
with computers, but I am afraid Bill Watterson would strongly disagree.
One of the most popular piece of information one finds on the net is made of nude
pictures of celebrities (Madonna, Lady Di, Pamela Anderson, etc...) Please click here to see my modest contribution to this charming habbit.
Commercial break...
If, by any chance, you happen to drop by in Singapore, you must have a drink at my
excellent friend Jin's place. Heaven knows why, he thought that opening a pub must be a
good idea. I guess that this decision was at least partly dictated by the amount he spent
in pubs... almost enough to make a business out of it. All in all, you must give it a try.
Berzerk
Coffee & Booze Pte Ltd.
557 Bukit Timah Road
#01-03 Crown Centre
Singapore 269694
Tel: 875.00.53
Fax: 435.55.43
If you happen to have a drink there, don't expect a discount though.... but give my
regards to Jin. He is easy to recognize... He is one in a million.
Friends and family
I have two quite nice brothers, Philippe and Nicholas. Philippe lives in Brussels, and
is a rather successfull novelist. Once in a while, I meet people who tell me that my face
looks familiar to them. In most cases, they saw Philippe on TV or in newspapers. Fun
feeling, at least for a while. Nicholas lives in Malaysia (but not for long: he'll move to
Bangkok in a month) (and he finally moved back to Kuala Lumpur a year afterwards...)
(and he is now back in Brussels, and we have a great time together) (and he just
decided to move back to Malaysia as soon as he manages to) and
is a sound engineer. He is crazy, but somehow, I am afraid this is a family issue.
Well, of course, I also have a father and mother (how unexpected !) and they are both
conformant to the standard Blasband style: noisy, nice and crazy.
I also have my cousin Bernard,
who lives in Holland. I don't see him very often, but when I do, I recognize the true
Blasband in hom as well. His favorite motto ? "Want to feel the earth quake ? Date
a geologist". No comment.
More generally, there are a few hundreds Blasbands all over the world, and apparently,
we are all related. You can find more Blasbands (mostly in the States) by searching on the
Internet.
I am not going to say much about my friends, since that would take far too long. I'll
just mention some of them (I mean, I am afraid I forgot some of them in the process) in
random order. Lionel Ferette, Juan Pablo Diez Perez, Alain Corchia,
Laurent Ferier & Katia Cherton, Claude Cherton, Jean-Christophe Réal &
Nathalie Mettens, Raymond
Devillers, Michel Vandenbossche & Vinciane, Bernard Rasson, Robert Milano &
Fabienne, William & Muriel Nicora, Michel Dehennin, Iza, Hans Delange, Alain & Eva
Ejzyn, Olivier Balken, Vincent & Laurence Chaidron, Cécile Moreau, Serge Kalugina,
Pascal & Nadine Fefer, Thomas Genssler, Inge Heyvaert, Frank Wouters,
Eric Sleeckx& Annick Vanderheyden, Philippe and Patricia Pierret.
Well, I think I did not forget so many of them... Probably a
few, though...
My professional activity...
If you'd like to put a label on my face, I guess you might refer to me as the CEO of
PhiDaNi. Given the actual size of the company, and my true interests in life, I think I'd
rather consider myself as a self-employed software engineer. I have been abnormally busy
with commercial, financial and administrative issues in the few last weeks, but now,
everything should be normal again. I try to concentrate on more technical issues, mainly,
compiler design and quality control.
Computing...
I've been busy with computers for years now, more on the software than on the hardware
side. I am always frightened when I realize how little more we do now with computers when
compared to my teenage time. Of course, there are GUI's, Internet, Multimedia and another
handful of fashionable buzzwords, but for the greatest majority of us, word processing
remains the most useful (or rather, most used tool). Wordstar was not such a bad product,
after all...
Well, this nostalgia won't do you (or myself, by the way) any good. On the other hand,
when looking backwards, even if things have evolved, I do have the strong feeling that we
struggle with the same limit which is complexity. Developing software today requires many
skills that can be taught (Object-orientation, for instance) and one skill that seems to
be impossible to explain, which is mastering complexity and entropy. Lessons have not
served anyone. People still consider incredibly unstable scaffoldings of so-called
compatible software components, and still end up with systems that fail miserably, systems
that are too sluggish, too hard to maintain, systems that depend on ever evolving
products, etc...
I have no silver bullet. I have no miracle recipe anyone can apply. I have no "I'll
make you rich and famous" motto. I don't know whether there is such a thing as
this kind of universal solution to this problem. What I know, is that this is not a
managerial issue. It is not a marketing issue. It is not even a methodology-related issue.
It is a technical and intellectual issue, and so far, the only direction I can think of in
order to cope with the ever-increasing complexity of the systems we develop is made of
abstraction and formalisms.
Yafl...
I also happen to be the original designer of the Yafl programming language. Originally, it was an abstract language
definition that I presented as my degree thesis. Eventually, what used to be a theoretical
dream has been implemented up to the point where we use it now on a daily basis for
mission-critical development projects, and quite a few people have worked or are still
working on Yafl today.
What else ?
And, you don't really want to know the rest about me. I cannot really believe you are
interested in the brand of Corn Flakes I prefer.
You can, however, send me a mail, or go back to PhiDaNi's home page.