Working With Rails

About Me

I love to solve and create, and I hate to re-solve and re-create. So my job typically entails creating things that will never need re-creating, and solving things that will never need re-solved. I create only things that last; temporary solutions do not set well with me.

I’m an object-oriented creator: for created things to be truly usable and reusable, they must be modular and extendable.

Learning

(I’ve only listed the things I have a thorough understanding of – enough to teach classes on the topics.)

• Languages: Ruby (of course), Object- & Event-oriented Javascript, Perl
• Frameworks: Rails, Merb, jQuery
• Markup: HTML/CSS, Atom, RSS
• Protocols: TCP, HTTP, FTP, SSL, OpenID, OAuth
• Other: MySQL, QuickBooks integration

Accomplishments (yeah, all the ego-building stuff)

• Contributed to both Rails & Merb
• Made several rubygems, including the QuickBooks rubygem, which makes QuickBooks EASY in Ruby
• Quickify – almost entirely in Javascript (integrates Shopify with QuickBooks).
• A smart status alert system built from three separate and distinct components: Sentry (local lookout, regularly reports status), StatusScribe (logs statuses, similar to twitter), and EventReporter (evaluates status changes for alert levels and notifies people).
• The goal of one of my projects is to make the whole Internet subscribable via push technologies (http, xmpp, email, sms, etc).

Specializing

I specialize in connecting technologies and creating new ones, to create new possibilities; and in coming up with solutions others overlook. Problems in, solutions out. Impossible stops here.

Formal Education

I pride myself in being completely self-taught, which I believe gives me the advantages of both learning more thoroughly the things I know and making me into a continuous learner. So please don’t contact me about jobs that require a degree of any kind!