Skip to main content Arjen Wiersma

Arjen Wiersma

My name is Arjen. I usually write something about the place I work at here. On March 21st I had my last day at NOVI and am currently taking a break. In April I will post my next adventure here…

I have been in the software and security industry for almost 30 years and have worked in:

  • Internet providers (Chello / UPC, Tiscali - NL): Java
  • Startups (Personify - USA, eBuddy - NL): Java, BigData
  • Healthcare and FinTech (Infomedics - NL): Java and dotNet - Managed the IT and Development teams
  • EduTech (NOVI - NL): Managed the development team building in Serverless, Javascript
  • Education (Hogeschool van Amsterdan / NOVI - NL): teaching software security and software engineering courses

I am a member of:

  • NLJUG: The dutch Java user group
  • VERSEN: The dutch association of software engineers

In 2024 I completed my Masters’ Degree. My research topic was BiDE, a language and architecture for the creation of bidirectional diagrammatic editors. In essence a way to modify program text using diagrams and text at the same time, allowing stakeholders of different backgrounds to work on the same system at the same time. I worked on this thesis with Bastiaan Heeren (Open Universiteit) and Jurgen Vinju (Centrum Wiskunde en Informatica).

In my spare time I love to explore the cutting edge of software engineering, exploring new languages such as Rust, Clojure and Golang in combination with Large Language Models and their novel applications.

I toot on the fediverse as @credmp@fosstodon.org and on @arjenwiersma.nl on Blue Sky.

Find my longer form writings in the Writing Category.

The views on this site are my own.

Recent posts

  1. The Cycle Continues

    I am leaving NOVI. Yes, I know, it is sad news. For almost 6 years I have been building and maintaining an organisation that provides the best cybersecurity and software development (Bachelor) education in The Netherlands. In that time I have done amazing things:

    • Created a short course format for people that want to switch careers. With some back of the napkin calculations I have seen over 2500 students pass through one of the programs.
    • I lead a team of quality assurance, educational development, EduTech developers and teachers to build an awesome EduTech tool and provide top-notch education.
    • Started and hosted the Hack The Box NL meetups for 4 years.
    • I became part of the management team and helped the organisation through an M&A proces

    It has been a wild ride, but like all things that begin, it must end.

  2. Clojure Projects

    When I tell people that I like to code in Clojure the common response is “wut?”. Clojure is not known as a programming language in which you create big systems. As all Clojure people know, this is not true. There are many systems written in Clojure. Let me show you some that are very actively maintained.

    First there is Lipas, a Finnish platform that shows you information about sports clubs. The structure and techniques used in this code base I use as a reference implementation for my own ClojureScript + Clojure systems. A screenshot of the application is shown here:

  3. Observability in Clojure

    Observability in cloud-native applications is crucial for managing complex systems and ensuring reliability (Chakraborty & Kundan, 2021; Kosińska et al., 2023). It enables continuous generation of actionable insights based on system signals, helping teams deliver excellent customer experiences despite underlying complexities (Hausenblas, 2023; Chakraborty & Kundan, 2021). In essence, adding proper observability to your system allows you to find and diagnose issues without having to dig through tons of unstructured log files.

Recent notes