Daigo is the first new addition to RedHanded staff. As he’s mentioned in the comments, he’s a Debian user who is becoming a Debian developer. He’s from Tokyo. We’re so glad to have him. Let’s kick this off with a short interview.

1. Tell me about yourself. You’re a Ruby coder?

I blog using tDiary, in Japan which is the most famous Ruby CGI to blog. Sometimes it is more famous than Ruby. Some people say “I know Ruby. It is the language to use tDiary.”

I use Ruby at office and home. At office I work for iAnywhere Solutions, a database vendor for PCs, as SE to provide consultations. I use Ruby to make tools for benchmark tests, investigations and so forth. At home I am making a web application using WEBrick and Needle and so on.

2. You’re a Beatles fan?

I was born 1974 but I and my wife really love Beatles. “sgtpepper.net” is my domain and my home server (of course Debian OS) is running 24*7. Last September we had a first baby. We named her Lennon.

3. Do you read any English sites regularly?

No. I used to watch http://www.theserverside.com/ because I loved Java. Now I read ruby-talk mailing list everyday.

4. You’ve mentioned using Ruby at your office. Are there many Ruby jobs for programmers in Japan?

I use Ruby as my tool at office, not for customers. This situation may be same as many other Ruby users in Japan. I think System Integrations with Ruby for enterprise customers is very difficult now because we have few Ruby engineers, commercial tools like IDE and application servers, training centers, supporting, consulting and so forth. That’s why Java comes to mainstream.

The word of programming jobs has wide definition like, imagine, “working for driving a car” means from a Taxi driver to an F1 driver. Ruby is a skill for F1 driving. Let’s enjoy handling future technology, which will come to commodity.

Lightweight Languages including Ruby, PHP, Python and others—the order is arbitrary—are getting big movement in Japan. I am sure we can change the situation. These language will be widely used like Perl is now.

5. What kind of food do you like?

The food my wife cooks :-)

Japanese style foods like Tofu, fish. We have variety kinds of foods, which are tasty and healthy and never bore.

I like caramel macchiato of starbucks, too.