Sunday, April 13, 2014

Welcome to Zero to Sixty Javascript!

Welcome!

Thanks for checking out the blog.  I hope you find it useful, interesting, maybe even thought-provoking.  I encourage helpful feedback and comments from everyone, so don't be shy.

Who Am I?

I'm a developer with just over 20 years' professional experience in all sorts of things, including database design, web development, SOA, collaboration, etc.  I work mostly with Microsoft tools for the backend (C#, SQL Server, etc.) but I'm comfortable with Java and other technologies like PHP, Python, and Perl.

Well, I actually started out with a TRS-80 Color Computer with 16K of RAM, so that's a bit longer than 20 years ago.  But I'm sure you don't want to hear me go on about my CoCo any more than I wanted to hear the old fellas talk about their room-sized computers with 4K of RAM and a 1MB hard drive which was so big you could actually see the bits on it, so we'll move on.

Lots of people (including myself) have tried to turn me into a manager, but my first love is development and I always end up back at the keyboard.  I'm happiest developing, either on my own or as the lead on a smallish team.

For the past few years I've been working a lot with JavaScript and "Single Page Applications".  I've branched out into JQuery, AngularJS, and Node.js.  I teach classes in web development at a nearby university, and I want a place where my students can go to see the lessons after they're tossed out of Moodle.  More importantly, I like to think that once you take a class with me, you're entitled to updates and patches on the material, including things I roll into future versions of the classes you take.

Of course, anyone's welcome to see this stuff, though I highly encourage you to take the classes if you can.  The class discussions alone are worth the price of admission, and you get a nifty certificate at the end.