Software Developer and Systems Engineer

Developing software for me has always been about the 20%, get a package off the shelf they generally do 80% of what you need. It's the final 20% where you either compromise or get something bespoke.

Software should not be about dictating workflows, I see systems where the users are having to adopt workflows that are alien to them because the software program dictates how things are done, I spent time in looking at current processes, do they work?, are they efficient?, can we model the software on the workflow not the workflow on the software?, this is a key thing that any bespoke development should deliver.

There are some good indicators of failed systems, lots of documents, spreadsheets with additional information in them, mailboxes full of folders for client information, notes fields in databases full of information because the right fields are not in the current system.

Other than the ability to write software the other key skill is being able to listen, often it's the little one liners that have the nuggets of information that are really important to make a project really successful.

In 1985 whilst still at school I learnt to program, my first language was pascal, I enjoyed learning to program software, once I left school I taught myself about databases, this seemed the natural path to follow as almost all programs want to save and retrieve information.

By 1990 I was writing commercial software, all database driven my main tools were DBase3+, Clipper, all DOS based back then, but I now had caught the bug for programming, I wrote a couple of systems in C++, I was not happy as the development time seemed to be too long, so I was on the search for the next tools to use, I tried Borland Pascal, wrote a couple of systems in it.

Around 1993, I found Visual Basic and Microsoft Access, I enjoyed working with both systems, I eventually became a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) in Microsoft Access version 2.0 and Microsoft Access 95.

Around the mid 1990's I had started to use Microsoft SQL Server 6.5, It was a joy to use, I upgraded to version 7 when it was released and I became qualified in Microsoft SQL Server 7.0, at this point I moved over to infrastructure, I passed the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) exams for NT4.

1999, Was a significant year, I wrote a complete system for an insurance company, the application dealt with all aspects of insurance from quotes, through to claims management, the front end was Microsoft Access 2000 and the back end was Microsoft SQL Server 7.0, the system scaled well, it ran over a WAN as there was two offices for the insurer at the time, it enabled the insurance company to grow rapidly.

2001, I passed the Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA) exams, by far the toughest exams I had done to date. In 2001, I also passed the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) exams for Windows 2000.

2002, The first version of .NET was released, I decided at this point my main development language was going to shift from Visual Basic/VBA to C#, I could see that C# was a winner.

Over the next few years, several ASP, ASP.NET projects mostly internal systems for the company I owned at the time.

2005, I delivered a scheduling system for a Nurse supply agency, Microsoft Access both front and back end.

2007, I developed a system for a Fund Manager company in the City of London, Microsoft Access front end, Microsoft SQL Server back end.

2008, I wrote a backup system in C# to capture images of client's servers ship them across the internet and rebuild the images in our office.

2011, I moved over to Apple for development, I wrote 2 successful apps for the app store, both were paid apps, which I fully supported, trained users for many years.

2015-2017, I wrote several web based applications mainly portals for back end data, one was connected to Twitter to generate alerts etc.

2018, I started work on a web based certification system for Nurses, this got delivered in the middle of Covid.

2019, I wrote my first Blazor app, it was a WASM type app, ran on a Raspberry Pi, and displayed live menu information for a cafe.

2020, I converted several Access 97 databases to the latest version of Microsoft Access, these systems are mission critical for the organisation that owns them, I have supported them ever since.

Over the next few years I wrote several Blazor apps, both WASM and Server types, some internal systems for a company I am working for and some private work.

I am currently developing a Blazor Server app for membership management, using a Microsoft SQL Server back end, with a Blazor Server front end. We are pulling all the data out of Dynamics 365 into Microsoft SQL Server, client wants more control over their data, whilst Dynamics is a good system it can be very complex to implement some features because of it's design.

All of the above are the significant projects, there was a lot of smaller projects in between.

We live in Gibraltar, so remote working is a key thing, happy to work on projects anywhere in the world, doing online meetings when necessary.

This website was built using Blazor Server, MudBlazor, Entity Framework Core and Microsoft SQL Express, hosted on IIS.

If you are looking for a developer that is interested in long term relationships with his clients, why not contact me