Get to know about Solathian

Welcome to the monthly series Meet The Champion.

Last month we declared Bob Lied, the winner of January 2023.

Today we are talking to Solathian, the winner of February 2023 of The Weekly Challenge. I hope you are going to enjoy the interview.

Mohammad: Tell us about your technical background?

Solathian: I’m an Electrical Egineer working as an embedded SW developer in the Automotive industry. I work mostly with C and CAPL. I dabble in Python. I write Perl tools amidst my colleagues silent screams. But I swear it’s not because I write instant legacy code, they just prefer Python over Perl.

Mohammad: How/When did you start using Perl?

Solathian: When I started working here at my current company 3 years ago. I was tasked with creating a module into an existing framework. The whole framework was written in Perl. It was Perl v5.14. The module generated Excel documetation based on an already existing large hash. I had to fetch data from an SQL server and had to parse C header files for info. I had little to no knowledge of the language and yes that was my first task during the probation. Well it turned out alright. Currently I’m kind of a Perl expert at the company, but I do know that I still have a long way to go.

Mohammad: How did you come to know about The Weekly Challenge?

Solathian: Maybe from Gábor Szabó's newsletter.

Mohammad: What do you like the most about The Weekly Challenge?

Solathian: I like to check out other people’s solutions and even now I can learn of new modules methods etc.

Mohammad: How much time you dedicate every week to The Weekly Challenge?

Solathian: Depends on the task, sometimes I like to experiment with it. Sometimes I finish it in like 10 minutes. So basically 10min - ~1hour.

Mohammad: Do you checkout others solutions and who is your favorite?

Solathian: Yes, I always check out all of the Perl solutions. If I don’t then I always check out Peter Campbell Smith's solutions. I do not know why, maybe because he looks like an experienced guy.

Mohammad: What do you suggest someone just started The Weekly Challenge?

Solathian: Check out other people’s solutions many things can be learnt.

Mohammad: Anything else you would to like to share with us?

Solathian: I have to admit that I like regular expressions. I’m not an expert, though.

That brings the end of the conversation with Solathian. Please do let us know your view. We will come back next month with another champion.