Ok... I'll byte.
I'm in my 40's, I've been a software developer since I was 17 having worked as a lead Beta (not that the term existed then) for Microsoft when they were in New Mexico (tiny firm). I assisted them with their first macro assembler. I worked with Jack Purdum former CEO or Que Books in building out the first 'C Compiler' for CPM/80 - CPM/86. I was published in numerous ragazines of the day mainly in the lands of TRS-80's.
From there I was picked up by Atari on the 8-Bit platform contracted out to EMI (Sub Command, EMI Soccer), EA, Sierra several others... many different games essentially as an "Atari hired gun". When the company produced the Atari ST series I was one of the first 25 people to have one. I and my brother instantly started coding a new graphics kernel for it and again, hired guns for gaming code and working with MegaMax on their C compiler. From there, I did some work with Dave Small on his Macintosh emulator for the Atari's. Apple noticed. I tried working with Apple on the Mac but they treated contractors/ISV's like shit. Worked with Quantum Microsystems for a bit. Eastman Kodak co. etc. So... off I went back into the land of Microsoft.
EA, Sierra, Dynamic, Lucas and others. Did some work with Mike Abrash when he was hired in to optimize Quake to punch more frames out of it. They adopted some of our code for the optimized Atari ST graphics kernel (ported to the Intel CPU of course). All assembly language.
So there's some very brief history.
I am a Software Engineer versed in C, C++, C#, Visual Basic 6, 2005/2008, Javascript, .NET 2.0-3.5, SQL (mySQL, Oracle, Postgres, MS SQL Server), Apache Server, MS IIs, Motorola/Intel & AMD Assembler, PHP (unfortunately) <- This is one of the worst computer languages ever born, its like C++ after a asteroid collision, a fine way to become a bad programmer). Currently exploring Flash (actionscript) a bit, Silverlight (obviously) and toying a bit with Java. Many long since DOA dialects such as Forth, Action... on and on).
As the WWW emerged (I was already using newsgroups etc etc before the www) I sold some stuff at some auctions places. Gave advice. First with a place called Haggle Online, then with Auction Web (which turned into eBay). I worked with Pierre and the then "President" Miss Stahl in lending ideas and function to eBay. I rode free.
In time I was picked up by Onsale inc. which was the undisputed king of B2P eCommerce in its day. They wanted take a run at eBay. So, I and two other coders built "The Onsale Exchange", a P2P, B2P venue for auctions. To make a long story short, in time it was sold to Yahoo, became Yahoo Auctions and Yahoo stores... Long since been replaced by all new code.
We do applications programming, websites on and on... Wherever revenues can be had essentially.
I await the day when Microsoft (or Adobe or Sun) will have "the ball" in a managed high performance compiled software engineering environment. Microsoft is essentially leading the pack in that regard with C#/VB/MSSQL/IIs.
Unfortunately it never happened "right" with C++. GNU C++, Intel C++... You'd thought ONE of them would have made a complete managed web environment, nope. PHP is so damned slow makes me nuts. I've done considerable C++ work in enterprise environments which is great when one has dedicated connection servers, app servers, db servers etc. But the "shared hosting" stuff, its a WTF.
Anyways... nuff' beetchin
I am also well versed in marketing which I learned when working with Onsale. After that I worked with Yahoo for a while and then went unto Ziff Davis (ZDNET), then the merger with C/Net happened and I stayed for a bit... Then exited, too much politics.
So... I do what I do what I do...
~meowser~
