TECHdotMN ? Know This Nerd? Meet Cosmo Wolf

Thanks to The Nerdery for underwriting our new series ?Know this Nerd??

Cosmo Wolfe is a front-end web developer, sailor, baker, skier, and 2x Startup Weekend participant.

Outgoing and opinionated, this talented UMD computer science student is already working for a (west coast) startup.

To nominate a nerd for future consideration drop us a line.

When and how did you originally become interested in technology?

I was probably 13 or so when I started spending a large portion of my free time on the computer. Really young. There was an ad for some sort of 3d animation program in a catalog, and decided I wanted to make 3d movies. My research lead to an open source program called blender 3d. I spent a year or so messing around with it and ended up getting pretty good at 3d modeling.

Then when I was 14, I joined an open source game project and met a web developer who helped me set up an online portfolio. This opened the programming world up to me, and the rest is history.

At what age did you write your first computer program? What did it do?

When I was doing the 3d modeling, I managed to copy and paste some python to change some of the UI of blender (all the UI panels are customizable through a python API). Soon after, I wrote what I would consider my first ?real? program ? a PHP script I used for my online portfolio.

Which do you prefer in programming, the struggle or the achievement?

It?s all about the learning, both the struggle and the achievement. When you discover the solution to the problem you?ve been working on, and it?s concise and perfect, that?s a great feeling. Suddenly you have more knowledge, and you want to apply that to everything you?ve done and will do. It?s a constant circle of overcoming problems and learning from the solutions.

What people, groups, projects, or resources were most influential in your development as programmer?

Being a self-taught programmer means the list is pretty long, but both the WordPress and Blender communities stick out.

I already touched on this earlier, but a huge shout-out to the blender3d community, especially Matan Heimann. Not only did these guys springboard my interest in computers in general, they were the catalyst that fueled my initial growth in learning web development.

The WordPress community is also amazing. I spent a lot of my early programming days on #wordpress, the WordPress IRC channel. I even found my first real programming job in #wordpress.

What do you do now? What languages are you proficient in?

Currently, I work part-time for a YCs12 company called Clever as a front-end developer while I finish a year of school at the U of M Duluth. I love anything Javascript-related, Node.js, Coffeescript, LESS.css, HTML5.

I?m always teaching myself new things, though. I recently picked up iOS dev because there was an iPhone app I wanted to make. I also have played with numerous other languages including python and C. I think ruby is a very pretty language, but I?m not a fan of rails.

What do you enjoy about it?

I love working at Clever; we?re changing the face of edtech and doing with an awesome team. Front-end web development is incredible, it allows you to use a large variety of tools to tackle a wide variety of problems on many different platforms.

If you were to be doing anything else, what would that be?

I?d probably be sailboat racing as much as possible. I crew on a yacht on Lake Superior, and absolutely love it.

What does agile software development mean to you?

Agile development is a term big companies use to make themselves sound like little companies. While there is nothing wrong with agile inherently (it?s all good practice), it?s still just one way of Getting Shit Done?. If you need to brag about how your company is agile, then you?ve already lost. Go out there and Get Shit Done. Hire a A players who Get Shit Done. Be agile by nature, not by design. Facebook has thousands of employees; they are arguably best known for moving fast and adapting quickly, but they don?t brag about being Agile. Ninety percent of the time, when you hear a company bragging about ?being Agile? they?re a giant Java shop who hasn?t Gotten Shit Done for years.

Where do you spend most of your time online?

I spend far too much time on Hacker News, a site run by ycombinator with a community dedicated to entrepreneurship and technology. If you don?t read Hacker News, I highly recommend that you start. It?s not a prerequisite for a startup, but I believe it puts you head and shoulders above the competition.

What concerns you most about where technology is headed?

I?m worried the industry is heading towards another tech bubble. We have quite a few overvalued companies, in my opinion. We?re nowhere near the 2000 tech bubble, but another burst would be rough for the industry.

What excites you most about where technology is headed?

Google powered, self-driving cars! In general, we seem to be experiencing a rise in hardware startups, due in part to a cost reduction to start hardware companies, and that?s really exciting. The possibilities are endless and potentially even farther reaching than software startups.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

I?m really excited about the tech scene that is starting in the Midwest, because it?s my homeland. However, there?s a still a lot of work to do before we can call ourselves a tech hub comparable with the West Coast, or even the East Coast. I encourage everyone, MBAs to high school students, go out there and learn to program something. When you?re a three person team, you don?t have the luxury of being able to be an expert in one field. Everyone has to do everything, and the Twin Cities needs more programmers.

Source: http://tech.mn/news/2012/11/19/know-this-nerd-meet-cosmo-wolf/

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