About
My name is César Valdez nice to meet you…
When I was a kid I like to watch a tv show called Mission Impossible my favourite character was the “hacker” this guy was able throw some buzzwords like “compiling, algorithm” then he will expertly hit some keystrokes and was able to open doors, shutdown helicopters, etc. That show with the bad/good movie “Hackers” where my introduction to the world of computers.
This was my favorite movie too…
At the age of 13 or so I got my first PC which was a Compaq Presario 425 which came with an Intel 486-DX2 CPU, 8 MB of RAM and 1 GB Disk. This machine will include one of the most influential software in my life which is Visual Basic 5.0
That was my first programming language, I remember creating my first programs there then I learn Quick Basic which ironically is less sophisticated but at the same time require more brain power to get something nice in the screen.
When I was in high school I decide that I wanted to learn C programming language because I was interested to create computer viruses. In those days I tough of computer viruses as the intellectual Mecca, for me viruses where this almost mythological entities (I didn't have internet back then) that where smart enough to adapt, hostage themselves in other executable files, use obscure techniques to hide, etc. That was my main driver to learn low lever stuff. At the end I learn a lot about how computer works, so end up writing something very similar to a backdoor with remote desktop capabilities very similar to Netbus or Sub-Seven backdoor very popular in those days. I did this program in Delphi which is like a Visual Basic for a programming language called Pascal, and it was very nice you can change the Wallpaper and get screenshots of the machine.
In this days I get pay for doing what I love which is design and write software, I always looking for opportunities to come up with some crazy ideas like Python robots to automatise manual task to create extensions that allows me to write Java in JS(I just wanted one library from Java). Now I moving more toward technical lead, but I don’t believe in ivory tower architecture, so I still like the “hacker” approach to problems.
You can learn more about my working life at my LinkedIn profile.
Aside from computer I also like to read about philosophy so I try to read ideas from Sartre, Descartes, Cornel West, etc. I get introduce to that world thanks to one of my favourite documentaries The Matrix. Now I struggling reading Simulacra and Simulation thanks to “The Wachowskis”.
Projects
Some of my open source projects:
Decorator Container
Service Mesh proof of concept, using container to decorate services at runtime.
PDF-Generator
Is an Apache Cordova plugin to generate PDF from HTML using phone native WebKit for iOS/Android.
Ella
Is a native Node.JS plugin that let you write Java inside Javascript, I wrote it in C++ and JNI.
Graphics
I'm also love graphics programming and every now and then I like to write some computer graphics animation as a hobby. Here are some of projects:
WebGL
This is some of my pet projects with WebGL, experimenting with fractals, geometry deformation and other stuff.
C/C++
Some 3d stuff using C++
Here I was learning the basics, OpenGL initialization, pushing triangles and writing simple shaders.
As I become more skilled I wrote this simple graphic engine with simple wavefront parser, skybox, camera manipulation and simple light simulation.