07 HEIN SMITH
Servlet Developer certification. Certification alone
isn’t enough, Smith says,
noting the importance of
seeing the power of Java
implemented in real-world
scenarios. Smith is also
interested in enterprise
security and would one day
like to become a specialist
in security for Java enterprise applications.
When coding, Smith gets
sustenance from “regular
cups of good, freshly ground
coffee.” And when he’s not
solving problems, he loves
to go mountain biking.
JAVA TECH
ABOUT US
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Age
23 | Occupation Software developer at Barone, Budge & Dominick
Location Johannesburg, South Africa
Hein Smith tackled his
first development project
at age six, when he built a
functioning cable car out
of LEGO blocks and sent
it from the second floor of
his house to a tree in the
backyard. He loves challenges, whether it’s creating
a design, bug-fixing using
Java EE APIs, or lock-picking
(“for educational purposes
only!” he insists).
Smith liked Java early
on because of its flexibility. While working on
a personal project testing
how one could break weak
encryption mechanisms, he
needed to merge various
word lists (with the support
of different file-encoding
input) on the Windows
platform and could not find
a working application that
suited his needs.
He ended up using Java,
because it made it so easy
to get the job done. More
recently, his projects have
included creating HS File
Hasher, a multiplatform
SHA and MD5 checksum
utility, and Kommunika,
a Java API for two-way
secure communication
with an Arduino device. In
the future, Smith plans to
create a Web-based home
automation system, both to
keep up with the latest Java
technologies and to play
with the Arduino platform.
Smith obtained his
certification in Java SE 6
programming in December
2010—his first certification
from Oracle and “
hopefully one of many to come,”
he says. Next he wants
to get his Oracle Certified
Expert, Java EE 6 JSPs and
Meet Hein Smith.
PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES OATWAY/GETTY IMAGES
