Elektor_Mag_-_January-February_2021

lektor January & February 2021 97

Abate: At which point did you realize, “Hey,

I’m a good instructor/teacher, and I think

I can help others interested in Java”? Or,

did a friend or colleague point you in that

direction?

Delporte: I like to explain things and

strongly believe in “learn by teaching.”

That’s what I do at CoderDojo with children,

but also with my blog and at work. To fully

understand a topic, you must be able to

explain it — or vice versa. The articles I

write for my blog are always the result of

something I want to try out but don’t really

know how to do it (yet). During the process

of figuring it out, I write down the steps I’ve

taken and what worked and didn’t work.

That’s how I learn new stuff and can share

that knowledge with others.

A focus on Java

Abate: Tell us about your history with Java.

Did you first learn it out of curiosity? Or was

it for a class? Or for work?

Delporte: When I started developing multi-

media applications, I had to learn Action-

Script (and even Lingo before that). Later, I

changed to C# and SQL for the web applica-

tions. As you may now know already, I learn

by experimenting. But also from reading

books and short (on-line) courses. When

I started at Televic Rail in 2010, I joined a

team which was already using Java. Switch-

ing from C# to Java was very easy. After all

these years of programming, I have to say

I learn the most from colleagues! Sharing

your work with others in presentations,

improving the code with pull requests,

accepting comments as how you can do

things better are all the best ways to learn

from others.

started taking off, I switched to web devel-

opment as my customers wanted to share

the same information on websites with a

content management system. And with

that knowledge, I grew into Java develop-

ment and technical lead doing product

development using that technology.

Teaching code

Abate: When did you start organizing

CoderDojo sessions? And what sort of

courses do you teach?

Delporte: In every company I’ve worked, it

has been a challenge to find good techni-

cal colleagues. Engineering (and definitely

IT) is still a too male environment. To me,

engineering is magic. With a few lines of

code or a few electronic components, you

can build “stuff.” I wondered why kids — who

love to build and experiment — suddenly

stop doing this and don’t choose a study

where they can continue “making things.”

CoderDojo [4] is a free club where volun-

teers help children from seven to 18 to

experiment with “digital stuff.” We use

Scratch (block based programming) for

programming, build worlds in Minecraft

with JavaScript, control electronics with

Arduino, build robots with Lego, and much

more. In 2013, I started such a club in Ieper

and Roeselare and still lead the one in Ieper

—  except now during Corona times, as it

is difficult to organize such informal clubs

when you have to keep a safe distance and

can not gather around a PC with different

people. Thanks to CoderDojo and other

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering

and Mathematics) initiatives, we see a

slow increase in the number of engineer

students — boys and girls!

That’s why I decided to study at a (techni-
cal) film school were we learned how film,
radio and television are produced, how
you calibrate cameras and connect all the
devices and recordings together. After I
graduated, video production changed a lot
when computer editing got introduced, and
that’s how I got into programming again
when clients wanted their company video
on CD-ROM and Internet.

Abate: In your bio, you mention the
Commodore 64. Do you remember any of
your early experiences with it?

Delporte: I only had one game on my
C64, because I really got more interested
in programming. Thanks to Elektor, I
found a book (must be around 1987) with
an electronics board with eight relays you
could control with the C64 and Basic. I
used it to control my Lego train and used
magnetic switches to detect the position of
that train through the joystick ports. That
was the first time I managed to combine
software and hardware. Nowadays, such a
project would be a lot easier (and cheaper)
with Arduino or a Raspberry Pi and the
many great extension boards.

Abate: What were your career goals in 1994
when you left NARAFI Nationaal Radio en
Filmtechnisch Instituut in Belgium?

Delporte: My first job was video editing
at a local TV station, and after a few years,
I started doing the same as a freelancer. I
never had a clear career goal but rolled from
job to job and learned new things along
the way. That’s how I transformed myself
from video editor to multimedia devel-
oper building company presentations on
DVD and CD-ROM. And when the Internet

Figure 1: Delporte’s book,

Getting Started with Java

on the Raspberry Pi. Figure 2: The LED strip setup.