I worked nearly 20 years as a professor of computer science in media at the Furtwangen University (HFU - Hochschule Furtwangen University) in Germany (2001-2020). I taught web development, web design, programming, web engineering and databases in the context of media and media production. I also worked as a researcher in the field of UX design and usability. In Furtwangen I taught a lot of programming classes based on Java (also a little bit of C++) and database classes with SQL - but in the end I preferred the web technologies with JavaScript and NoSQL databases (details).

One of the greatest experiences in Furtwangen was the supervision of numerous student projects, normally in the context of the web. These projects formed an important part of our curriculum, lasted 2 semesters and ended normally with a functioning prototype. The students learned a lot and also did I.

Before my time in Furtwangen I worked as a software developer and consultant in the public administration in Bremen, Germany. During this time (1994-1996) I got the opportunity to work in a research project in the University of Bremen under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Herbert Kubicek. There we developed one of the first web-based city information systems in Germany. My contribution was the insistence of using a database - at that time a rather new concept in that field - and the development of a web-based content management system. This was also the basis for my PhD thesis about the development of high quality web-based information systems (1996).

My first professional experience was in the field of software development in the private sector. For 2 years I was part of a team and programmed in COBOL building a system for manufacturing planning and control.

I studied computer science at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany (1975-1982). I still remember the time when I started programming with punch cards - but in Algol68! My diploma thesis was about the development of the programming language ADA.