Interview: Web Developer Konstantin Kovshenin
May 14th, 2010 by Tweet
We are continuing with our interview series, here at Admix Web, where we are publishing one interview per week of fellow web designers, web developers and graphic designers. I have a few interviews set for the next few weeks, but I am still requesting designers and developers to nominate colleagues in the field, or themselves, for an informal interview conducted by me. Please contact me if you are interested at hlamarche[at]admixweb[dot]com. This week we have our first Russian Web Developer, Konstantin Kovshenin, who at the age of 21 already runs his own development, codes in about every language there is, and even dreams about coding while he is sleeping! This guy is very interesting and inspiring, and his intelligence, knowledge, and humor makes him worth getting to know! Get to know the face and mind behind the web development blog, kovshenin.com , and maybe you will start dreaming in code as well! Enjoy!
Thank you so much for doing this interview for Admix Web. Can you give us a brief background on yourself?
Howdy! My name is Konstantin Kovshenin, 21 years old. Living and working in Moscow, CTO at a startup called Frumatic. WordPress addict, php junkie, linux maniac, founder of a Twitter app called Foller.me. Addicted to my iPhone and coffee.
Do you consider yourself a web designer, web developer, blogger, or all three?
Well, perhaps more of a web developer than a designer, although I do sometimes like to purchase images from iStockPhoto, gather them together in Photoshop, apply a few effects and voila, a website! Does that make me a designer? Oh and I did my business cards in Corel, does that count?
As for blogging, well I do own a personal blog, and had one about robotics, which I closed down a few months ago. One thing I like about having a blog, is that you can share source code snippets immediately, so I guess that I’m not a “blogger”.
Why Design/Development as a career? What were your inspirations for that profession?
Because it just makes me feel good, I love to write code. Inspirations? Perhaps a well-known board game called Chess, and then another one called Snake. I never finished my Chess game because I was no math genius (I was around 12 years old) and I had no idea you could find algorithms in the web 
As for Snake, yeah, I did write my very own Snake-clone in C++ and SDL. I was 15 at that time.
Oh and here’s my inspiration:
Do you do more front end or back end web development?
Back end. Because you don’t have to worry about computer-illiterate clients who will ruin all your UI and UX on the front end.
Are you self taught or did you study design/development?
I went to a CS course in college when I was 14, they taught us flow-charts and Pascal, while I was writing in C++ and php as a freelance-kiddie. So yeah, generally I am self-thaught.
How many years have you been in the field, and how has the field changed during that time?
Around six years I suppose. Ruby became a celebrity, PHP still strong, ASP less attractive. People stopped hanging around in IRC, everybody moved to Facebook and Twitter. C and C++ haven’t changed much at all.
Can you describe a day in the life of you?
I wake up in the morning, check my e-mail/twitter/fb via my iPhone. If there’s something serious/interesting I turn on the PC and spend a few minutes there with a cup of coffee, and then off to the office. It takes me around an hour to get to my office by metro so I listen to music and read RSS.
When I arrive I have some more coffee, watch a few YouTube videos, tweet some links to interesting articles I read in the metro, login to our projet management and source code management system, see what’s going on, take a few minutes to think, and then dive into the code. At 8-9 pm I realize that it’s getting late and that I hadn’t had lunch, so I head home. Metro, music, some webdev article I printed at the office. Then, err. Beer, sushi, movies and finally some sleep.
What does your workspace look like?
A little bit messy, but here it is:
Would you define yourself as introverted or extroverted? Describe your personality?
Extrovert, though I enjoy spending time by myself. I don’t like clubs, pubs, discos, etc. I guess I’m too old for that sh* (my brother’s a DJ) although I do love drinking beer and hanging out with friends. I don’t spend much time on my PC during weekends, I keep those for the real world, although I do tend to tweet from my iPhone, but we all do.
What makes you unique?
I can code while sleeping.
If you could give a Shout Out to someone who has inspired you in your life, but may not know it, who what it be?
Bjarne Stroustrup, Matt Mullenweg, Pete Cashmore, Dave Winer, Biz and Evan, Sergey and Larry.
What is your favorite color? Does it infiltrate your designs?
Black, and white. Yes it does, haven’t you seen my website?
What was your first design you actually marketed? How do you feel about it now?
Err. It’s aweful, seriously. I don’t want you all to get brain damage, next topic.
What is your favorite type of design work? And, what has been your favorite project? (Can you provide a pic?)
I like wireframing, i.e. drawing mock-ups So far, of course kovshenin.com
Explain the significance of your company name.
Frumatic. Fru for fruit, matic for automatic. Get it? Me neither…..;)
Are you a Mac or a PC? Why?
PC, cause Macs are extremely expensive outside the US.
What design tools do you use? Which tools would you suggest to fellow designers/developers?
Pencil and a piece of paper. Mockingbird for wireframing, photoshop for designing, corel for vector, notepad/vi for slicing and coding. I suggest vi, because it’s funky to edit source code on the fly (during production), especially when you end up breaking it.
Tell me about Frumatic: What made you start it?
Frumatic started this year in January. It’s a fairly small web development agency based in Moscow, but we do host some good coding minds and designers here. We’re focusing on working for clients right now, but we’re working on some web products internally, which we tend to release in the future. We’re also thinking about hosting WordCamp Moscow this year. I started it because there’s too much work and I can’t handle it all by myself, which means I’m not freelancing anymore.
What is your favorite blog article you have ever written? Why?
Custom Post Types in WordPress 3.0. Because Matt Mullenweg linked to it.
What are some of the design and development blogs you read on a regular basis, why?
Smashing Magazine (surprize!) and all the Smashing Network, TechCrunch, RWW, Mashable and my personal favorite – Clients from Hell.
How Can People Contact You?
Twitter: @kovshenin , Website: kovshenin.com
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Holly Lamarche is a writer and attorney from New Orleans, Louisiana. Holly lived in Santo Domingo for two years, where she taught at a local private High School, and she currently writes and edits part-time for AdmixWeb and lives in Lafayette, Louisiana.
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My workspace looks just like that. Although my stuffed animal is a penguin with ice skates.
Thank you for the interview admixweb!
~ K
Whoa, really inspiring interview and always great to know more web developers.I have checked your website and pretty much inspired by your work. Keep coming
And thanks Holly for this interview.
And I’m proud of my brother
Great interview, big ups!
Nice interview
I’m surprised that you don’t use two monitors.