About Me

My name is Reinout Roels, and at the time of writing I am 20 years old. I was born (and still live) in Belgium and I am currently a student studying Computer Sciences at the VUB. Of course we learn a lot there, but most of my knowledge has been acquired through self-study.

I love to learn new things and expand my current "universe". I have had many many projects in the past; some of them totaly useless. But as I see it, sometimes the experience gained on the way can be of far greater value than the result. Don't let this sentence scare you because I know results CAN be important, especially in the job market. When making an agreement I am driven to get the job done, and keep the customer happy (see Portfolio).

I started real programming when I was 13. Before that I was already busy with computers, but more as entertainment (games).
My first contact with programming was when I received my first TI-83+ calculator. It featured a small very basic language called TI-Basic. It intrigued me, and soon I knew the language from bottom to tops. I had been bitten by the programming virus. After a while I grew tired of the silly calculator, and wanted to apply my knowledge to real computers. I looked into QBasic because of the similar syntax, and messed around with that for a while.
One day, my father came home with a present for me: Visual Basic 6. When first opening this real development studio it all seemed complex and weird, but a week (and many tutorials) later I was writing my first game in VB6.
Later I learned HTML and PHP for making dynamic websites. I later expanded my knowledge with VB.Net (2003, 2005, 2008) and C++. During my studies following after, new languages were introduced and learned: Scheme, Ruby, Assembler, Java, ...
Together with the theoretical classes I get at university this gave me the knowledge to understand computers, and use them for what they were made.

My main interest now lies in Creating games, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Robotics and Data Compression, but this certainly does not prevent me from getting deeper into other subjects.

Of course I also have a life besides programming. I like to hang out with friends, go to the movies, go out for a drink, ...
I won't say no to a good horror/action/sci-fi/fantasy movie, and like to play videogames on various platforms. I'm together with my girlfiend for almost 2 years now, and we are happily living together.

If you have any other questions about me or about hiring me, please have a look at the Contact page.

Reinout