Welcome back! This time we talked with Jani Penttinen, Co-Founder and CTO of XIHA Life. XIHA Life is a social network for multilingual people around the world. XIHA Life connects people with blogs, homepages, music and other social media.

How did you start your programming career?

I started doing more serious programming during senior high. I was doing some demos at the time for Atari ST, until on day I decided to write a game. The game, Utopos, was released as shareware and it was reasonably successful, which gave me enough motivation to steer towards becoming a professional game developer.

Which programming languages, tools and frameworks do you utilize?

I started with assembly programming and then later on moved to C and C++. During my active career in game development I was using C++ and then some shader programmer languages (for 3D graphics) and occasionally optimizing in assembly. Back in those days I used Microsoft Visual Studio.

These days I do web development in PHP, using our in-house framework. I am not a full time programmer anymore, but in the CTO role I still participate in the programming efforts from time to time.

What are the best parts of programming?

The best thing about programming is that you’re able to create things by yourself. Basically you can create something and see it running on screen, and realize that without your work this thing would never have been done. Programming gives you pretty much a total control in every aspect of what the computer is doing.

What are the worst parts of programming?

Programming is very time- and resource-intensive work. It’s hard to focus on other stuff when you’re in the middle of programming something, and the projects easily last much longer than you originally estimated. It’s fun when you’re doing it for fun sometimes, but it can be quite a stress when it becomes a part of your daily life for too long time.

There are times programming feels overwhelming and you can’t get anything done – how do you cope with it?

You just need to do something else. If you have a lot of things to program, it’s a good idea to take the easiest job from the list and do that if you’re stuck. Being able to finish something quickly will give a mental boost, while your brain will continue to process the previous problem in the background. It’s also a very good idea to talk to other programmers when you feel you’re stuck. Often just describing the problem you’re trying to solve will be helpful and you may figure out the solution by the time you finish the sentence.

What is the optimal environment and time of day to get the best results?

That depends on the person. I am at best in the morning, but if the task is fun and I am enjoying the work, I can keep programming through the night. The environment obviously needs to be free of distractions. Sometimes it’s good to unplug the internet, for example, to be sure there’s no communication from IM or social networks which might steal the focus.

How would you like to improve your programming skills?

I learn by doing, and that is how I have always learned. The best way is to just get to it, and not be afraid of things you have never done before.

Do you comment your code?

Yes, of course. I probably don’t do enough of it, but it is important to have a habit of at least basic commenting and very clear variable / function names.

Your message to ViopeProgramming.com users and other beginning programmers?

Programming is fun, and can be rewarding too. It doesn’t matter which language or tools you use, good programmers can switch between languages and tools at ease. The most important thing is to learn to design the code before writing it!

Thank you, Jani!