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Interview with Peter Krumins, CEO of Browserling

Today, we’re talking with Peter – a blogger, author of Perl One-Liners and other One-Liner books, open-source developer, and co-founder and CEO of Browserling. Hello Peter. It’s great to have you with us. Can you give us a little insight into you?

Sure, I’m Peter Krumins! But professionally, I’m a hacker, entrepreneur, author, and blogger. And all around good guy, of course. I’ve been working with computers since I was six years old and have been hooked ever since.

How did you get into programming, and what are your earliest memories?

My earliest memory has to be writing a character-to-ASCII-code converter in Visual Basic. So translating an “a” into “97”, that kind of thing. But, honestly, I learned Visual Basic, mIRC Scripting and C all at once. I took such a great interest in programming at such a young age that it naturally made sense for me to learn them all at a once – they say that you learn skills much quicker at a young age, and I am sure that helped me develop my skills so young.

You’ve written several books focused on “One-Liners”, can you tell us a little bit about what they are?

One-liners are short, one line, pieces of code that accomplish things well beyond their size would suggest they can. These are great tools within any programmer’s arsenal, as they can resolve complex issues and problems without requiring an unnecessarily large amount of work. They started with the tutorials that I wrote on my catonmat blog. To begin with, I just wanted to demonstrate how powerful one-liners can be, but it grew to the point that it only made sense to self-publish my blogs as e-books and later re-publish with No Starch Press.

How did you get into blogging?

I just wanted to teach people a little of what I’d learned about programming, and the blog is a great format to do so. I think everyone should be programming and I’d like to teach as many people the skills to do so. This is why I wrote the blogs initially, and how the one-liner books came into being.

You’re also the co-founder of Browserling. Can you tell us a little about what the goal of the company is?

Sure. Browserling is a cross-platform testing platform. What this means is that developers can use the platform to test their websites as if they are being viewed from any browser. There are slight differences between how different web browsers - for example, Internet Explorer and Chrome – interpret web pages, and Browserling enables developers to easily see those differences. A great website needs to work in any browser, and Browserling allows web developers to ensure that their website does.

And how did Browserling come about?

Browserling was originally inspired after I read several of Paul Graham’s essays about starting a start-up. They taught me a lot of great lessons which I carried over into the beginning of Browserling. I also really wanted to offer people a tool which they could use to simplify the web design process. I thought that, now that I have the skills and knowledge to build such a useful tool, I should put them to use, and I really think we’ve built a fantastic tool which any web developer can enhance their productivity with.

What makes Browserling unique?

Browserling is intended for web developers. It’s created by web developers (me and my team) for web developers. It solves a problem that almost every web developer has, and we know it. Its focus is entirely on solving web developer issues, and we have made sure to keep the product streamlined and perfect for those who need to resolve their cross-browser issues. In an age where there’s not only desktop and laptop-based browsers, but also mobile phone and tablet-based browsers, it’s more difficult than ever to ensure consistency across them all, but Browserling was designed from day one with this in mind.

How can someone try out Browserling?

The free version of Browserling is available to everybody, without any requirements. Just go to the Browserling’s homepage, and you can begin testing within 5 seconds. The free plan allows a web developer to try their site out in the basic browsers, but the developer or team plan allows access to the whole spectrum of browsers. We’re also always keen on customer browser projects, so if that sounds like something you’re interested in, feel free to email us at [email protected]. We make browsers do wonders!

What are the new online tools you’ve been working on?

Online tools are very similar to one-liners. They are tiny programs that work in the browser and do one thing and one thing only. They solve a concrete problem and return a result and do nothing else. I’ve written hundreds of them and they are used by half a million developers a month.

Can you give some examples of online tools?

Sure! For example, online JSON tools do all JSON related operations, such as convert JSON to CSV or JSON to XML. Then online STRING tools do all string operations, such as converting strings, extracting strings, encoding and decoding strings, and so on. The latest site online MATH tools is all about math operations, such as calculating prime numbers, doing matrix operations and generating fractals.

Are math tools for developers, too?

Absolutely! Developers often need prime number lists, or fibonacci number lists, or other number sequences, or quickly multiply two matrices. Using Wolfram Alpha sucks as it takes half an hour for their website to load. Math tools on the other hand load instantly and you get results instantly too as everything is computed in your browser without sending anything to the server for processing.

So you’re also a mathematician? How did you come up with math tools?

I am not (Peter laughs)! I hired an actual mathematician to write these. I’ve a lot of ideas for math tools and my employee writes them. I just give hints on what else needs to be added or how, as a developer, I would use them. Then we iteratively improve them together until tools are developer friendly enough.

Outside of your company and blog, what does Peter like doing?

To me, health is everything. I’m really into track and field at the moment and like to take part in 400 and 800-meter distance runs. I tend to start my days with several 60m sprints to energize myself for the day ahead. I’ve also got a little bit of an artistic side and I produce comics for nerds, which I publish on my weekly web comic.

What advice would you offer young developers who are looking to make a name and career for themselves?

That’s a difficult question, I think. It really depends on the trajectory a young developer is looking to make for themselves. Do you want to work on open-source projects and make a name for yourself that way, or focus on working privately and developing your skills there? Regardless, some general tips I’d probably give are:

  1. Break big tasks into several smaller tasks. A large project can be terrifying to look at overall, but if you focus on resolving individual issues, you’ll quickly find that you’ve completed most of your project before you know it.

  2. Focus on creating value. There’s no point working on something that no one will ever use.

  3. Blogging is a great way of sharing ideas and receiving feedback.

  4. Automate things away. Make computer programs do your work while you sit back and enjoy your coffee.

  5. Deploy early and often!

Thanks, Peter. I’m sure many of our readers will take your advice to heart. That’s all we have time for today, thanks for chatting with us.

I hope they do! Thanks for having me.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.

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