Who is ?
Different answers to this question are possible, those whom prefer a "factual" answer can find my CV below. The others, well you asked for it...
I'm somebody who has always been fascinated by technology in the broadest sense possible : mechanical, electrical, electronical, physics,... The advent of the (programmable) calculator, microprocessor,... during my college years was very exciting to me. Those "contraptions" had the power to help us in our day to day work and make us more productive and efficient. At the time not a very reactionary point of view (to the best of my knowledge). Now, 30 years later... well one should never give up hope should he :-)
Time warp... Even today, it's still technology that "makes me tick" and the automation aspects of it even more.
As a footnote : how did I experience the last 30 years of technology ? K.I.S.S. !!! In the early 80's there was an article in Byte Magazine about "Fatware", apparently not too many people read that. It doesn't stop to bewilder me that "the powers that be" seem to be getting more interested in me mastering "the latest and greatest" office suite than in a factory producing something worth selling ?!
CV
Personal
- name : Wim Langers
- home base : Schoten, Belgium
- birth : somewhere halfway the previous century
- degree : Industrieel Ingenieur at I.H.A.M., Antwerpen, Belgium in 1982
Courses
- Master, Scientific Computer Application at U.C.L., Houthalen, Belgium in 1984
- Siemens, S5 at Siemens Instituut, Brussel, Belgium in 1987
- Siemens, S7 at Siemens Instituut, Brussel, Belgium in 1996
- Microsoft SQL server 7 at Microsoft partner, Leuven, Belgium in 1997
- Master, PC instrumentation technology, K.H.K., Geel, Belgium in 1999
Study/project
- Visual C++, study/project in 2000
- Java, study/project from 2000 to 2009
- Extreme programming, study/project from 2005 to ...
- Visual C++ embedded, study/project in 2006
- Ruby/Python, study/evaluation in 2008
- Lua, study/project from 2008 to ...
Hobbies
- listening to music
- going to the movies
- reading (if I could only find the time...)
-
open source projects
-
Lua : dynamic language
- Lua BTD
-
As far as I'm concerned automated testing (unit testing) is one
of the most relevant tendencies in software engineering.
Lua BTD
is a unit testing framework for Lua.
-
Arduino : open source hardware controller
- lcdui
-
Arduino is a fascinating concept with a large community and lots
of 3rd party modules/extensions. One of which is a LCD module.
lcdui
is a library to facilitate building user interfaces - rdcnet
-
rdcnet
is a network stack that enables communication between Arduino's with little (or no) extra hardware.
-
Lua : dynamic language
Skills
- Siemens PLC's the entire product line (S5 and S7), different communication processors, operator pannels,...
- networks : Profibus DP, Profibus PA, Profinet,...
- Opto 22 Pamux and Optomux
- PC's with DOS, QNX, Windows, OSX, Linux
- programming languages : Access Basic, Basic, C, Forth, Java, Lua, Pascal, Visual Basic, Visual C++, S5, S7, CFC, SFC, assembler : 6502, 8085, 6802, 8086
- inter- intranet : web design, XHTML, XML
- software packages : Access, AutoCad, DrafixCad, Microsoft Office, PageMaker, PageMill, WordPerfect,...
- SCADA : Coros 2000, Coros LSB/FlexOs, Coros LSB/WIN, FIX/Dmacs
- instrumentation, electricity, networks,...
Languages
- dutch : mothertongue
- english : good
- spanish : good
- french : relatively good
- german : notions
Experience
- Bell Telephone mfg co, Geel - Test Engineer from 01/11/83 to 31/01/84
- Responsible for the development and maintainance of testprograms for in-line testing of populated PCB's on Genrad testapparatus.
- Verlipack, Merksem - Head of Cold End maintenance from 01/02/84 to 28/02/85
- Verlipack, one of the biggest glass containers producers in Europe, offered me this position in their Merksem (one of five factorys in Belgium) affiliate. I was in charge of a team of 15 technicians for the maintenance of all electronical equipment in the factory and all "cold end" production machines as well as for the adjustments of the production machines at production changes.
- Depauw & Stokoe, Antwerpen - Software Engineer from 01/02/85 to 12/10/86
- Depauw & Stokoe, an affiliate of the S.G.S. multinational which is worldwide involved in supervising goods transactions, developed an expertise in the field of quantity analysis on liquid and gaseous petroleum products (gasoline, fuel, LPG, LNG,...). I was responsible for the development and installation of software implementing quantity calculations in different installations (Bergenssen - 5 25.000 + ton tankers, BASF - dangerous products tank park, AGT,...).
- Metallurgie Hoboken - Automation Engineer from 13/10/86 to 15/09/87
- Metallurgie Hoboken one of the biggest producers of metals in Europe (lead, copper, gold, silver,... from ore and/or recuperation) with affiliates in Olen and Overpelt, had an engineering department that took care of most of their automation projects. I was engaged as a member of their engineering forces.
- A.I.C. - Automation Engineer from 16/09/87 to 31/07/92
- AIC was active in the field of industrial automation. In a team of 15 engineers and 15 electricians/instrument specialists, we developed automation solutions for our clients. I was responsible for concept, programming and commisioning of a number of projects.
- Langers Wim - consultant from 01/08/92 to 31/12/93
- I started activities in the industrial automation sector on a freelance basis.
- Langers Wim bvba - consultant from 01/01/94 to 30/04/00
- After one year it was decided to consolidate things and to continue the activities as a "bvba".
- Mexico from 01/05/00 to 15/06/01
- AWL bvba - consultant from 01/09/01 to ...
- Back in Belgium a new business was founded, same activities.