A child of the 1960’s I have been a software developer for over 40 years…
First as a hobby developer then, after my degree, as a professional I have been doing this for. probably, way too long 🙂
I started writing software back in the days of punch cards, paper tape readers and line editors. Since the good old days I have witnessed many things as our chosen profession has evolved, most of them good, some of them not so. Aside: who would have thought that after the Windows Vista disaster we got saddled with YAML?? When are we going to learn?
Back in 1995 I came across a curiosity, the release of the Java SDK (as it was called back then). Since becoming entranced by the promise of Write Once, Run Anywhere (or throw errors everywhere) I decided to gamble on my future profession and chose to concentrate on Java development. Since then I have had to learn to write software in Visual Basic, C, C++, C# and other languages before Java server development really took off in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. Since then I haven’t looked back
When I am not slaving over a hot laptop I indulge myself by cooking, drinking fine wine and writing bits and pieces here and there. I am also, at least according to the stereotype, a bit of a cad: I own 2 Jaguar cars, one an S Type built in 2000 (which is like driving around in a Gentleman’s Club only without the butler serving brandy) and a 2017 XF-S (which is like driving a battle suit). I love driving them both! The good news, for the climate at least, is that I don’t really have to drive them very much, my job means I get to work from home a lot and when I am at a customer site I travel by train.
I am married, have 2 grown up children. In 2021 my long suffering Wife and I will be celebrating our Silver Wedding Anniversary!
I also love cats, which is a sad thing as Charly, our companion for over 13 years, died recently.
I was born in the United Kingdom but moved countries in 1996 and now have dual citizenship. Boy am I glad about that, the state of Blighty being what it is.
Disclaimer: all the content on this site, especially my blog posts, is strictly my own opinion and I do not intend to market or advertise products or services. The exceptions to this are in the choice of JDK’s I think are the best and which IDE(s) I prefer to use and consider to be the best. I also have strong associations to a variety of Open Source Projects which will be become apparent in some of my posts.
I have been employed by FaktorZehn GmbH since 2017. This company is far and away the best company I have ever had the pleasure of working for, thanks for not only letting me grow but actively encouraging me to do so!
If you are kind enough to leave comments or feedback, please be constructive in your criticisms and be polite at all times. I will not hesitate to ignore stupid feedback and cull inappropriate comments.