Hi, I am gXLg, also known online as /dev/null. My real name is Dmitry Plesunov and my pronouns are He/Him.
I was born in Russia and moved to Germany at the age of 11.
Currently I am 21 years old.

I speak Russian and German at a native level and fluently speak English. Also I am slowly learning Japanese and can hold a simple conversation in it.

At the moment I am studying computer science and working part-time as a customization engineer.

I discovered programming at 12, already 9 years ago, and it happened entirely by accident.

While browsing for mobile games on my old Nokia phone, I found one that claimed it could create new games. Curious, I downloaded it. It turned out to be a 6502 emulator that required programming in binary.

I had no idea what that meant. So I started reading the built-in documentation. I wrote down every opcode and its arguments by hand. After weeks of trial, error, and a lot of scribbled notes, I managed to build a simple Snake-like game entirely in machine code. It took me a month. I enjoyed every single minute of it.

That accidental discovery shaped everything that followed. Since then, I've explored algorithms, cryptography, machine learning, web development, security, and many other areas of computer science on my own. What started as curiosity became direction and shaped my future.

Along the way, I also discovered Linux. Around 2018 I installed Ubuntu as my first distribution, and like many curious users I soon began exploring others. I experimented with Debian and Arch for a while before eventually settling on Manjaro with the XFCE desktop environment, which I still enjoy using today.

What fascinated me most about Linux was the philosophy behind it. The entire system is built on open-source software: anyone can inspect the code, understand how things work under the hood, and contribute improvements. It is maintained by a global community and freely available to anyone who wants to use it. That idea resonated with me immediately.

Writing software, sharing it with others, and improving it together became something I genuinely enjoy. I often find myself spending hours investigating problems or refining small details, even when there is no external pressure to do so.

Today I actively maintain several open-source projects aimed at different audiences. The constant feedback from users and contributors has helped me improve my skills over the years, and the interaction with the community continues to motivate me to keep building and maintaining software.

Apart from writing software, I enjoy creating in many other ways. Music has always played an important role in my life and has become one of my main creative outlets.

Over the years I have explored hundreds of different genres, constantly searching for new sounds and ideas. Recently I have been listening a lot to Post Punk, Jungle, Kawaii Pop and Techno. Music has always helped me focus, process difficult moments, and recharge mentally.

Listening eventually led to creating. I enjoy producing music myself, mainly inspired by Drum & Bass and Breakcore. My tracks often experiment with unusual sound combinations and structures, blending fast rhythmic elements with more atmospheric influences. You can find a small collection of my work on this page.

Creativity for me also extends into video games. I enjoy exploring systems, discovering hidden mechanics, and optimizing strategies. Minecraft in particular has been a perfect playground for that mindset. I design large bases, engineer complex redstone machines, and experiment with obscure mechanics to automate tedious tasks.

One of those experiments started with something simple: repeatedly breaking and replacing lecterns to obtain specific enchanting books from librarian villagers. What began as a small personal automation eventually evolved into an open-source project called LibrGetter, which has since reached more than 20,000 downloads.

Competitive environments are also something I enjoy. In first-person shooters like Counter-Strike 2, I focus on improving reaction time, strategy, and mechanical precision. At some point in the future, I am planning on building a team of players who value disciplined gameplay, strong game sense, and coordinated strategies.

Another challenge I regularly return to is Clash of Code, a programming competition where participants solve algorithmic problems as quickly or as efficiently as possible within a fifteen-minute time limit. The problems themselves are usually not extremely complex, but the pressure of competing against other experienced programmers forces you to think quickly and stay calm under time constraints. My best ranking so far reached 29th place worldwide around June 2026.

When working with new technologies, I rarely rely on quick tutorials that focus on getting something running as fast as possible. Instead, I prefer reading the official documentation and experimenting on my own. Tutorials show what to do, but documentation explains the concepts, assumptions and architecture behind it. Understanding why something works has always been more valuable to me than simply knowing how to reproduce it.

Because of that, I try to build a structured understanding of the systems I work with. Rather than treating tools and frameworks as black boxes, I explore how their components interact, what design decisions were made and where limitations or edge cases might appear. This approach may take longer at first, but it pays off when solving complex problems or debugging unexpected behaviour.

A lot of my learning happens through small experiments and side projects, which can be found on my GitHub. When I encounter something interesting or inconvenient during development, I often build a small tool around it. Some automate repetitive tasks, others exist purely to explore an idea or understand a technology better.

Over time this has led me to work with a wide range of tools and technologies: CI/CD automation, command-line tools, bash scripts, small web interfaces, HTML calculators, and simulation projects involving genetic algorithms and machine learning. Many of these tools never become full products - they simply make development easier or satisfy my curiosity.

Building things this way sometimes feels like taking the long route, but every experiment adds another piece to the puzzle and gradually forms a deeper understanding of the systems I work with.