Work

I've been a software developer since Autumn 1995 and a web developer since Summer 2008. I've been employed by Datacom Systems Ltd in Wellington, an ill-fated new media adserving company in London, Online Solutions Ltd (specialising in real estate software) in Auckland, and (currently) a millionaire-philanthropist/crazed-entrepreneur combo who don't care where I am, as long as there's an internet connection. I've done work for the Electoral Enrolment Centre, the Lottery Grants Board, Department of Social Welfare, the PSA, NZMusic.com, Smoke CDs, and Saatchi & Saatchi.

The tools I will always remember fondly are Unix scripting, C, Oracle PL/SQL, Excel VBA (no shit!), Crystal Reports (ditto) and Drupal. I do not fondly remember Delphi, VBA for Word, VBA for MS Access, VB4 the 16-bit version, Oracle Reports, anything involving ODBC, and Wise Installer. In light of all this, my current job and my switch to OSX make a lot of sense.

FYI Drupal is a developer tool with a learning curve - it's neither a programming language nor a quickie black box solution. In particular, as a programmer you'll generally head-desk for about a month of full-time use, but as long as you're reading the right documentation by experienced people, and once you've grokked how the hook & theme systems work, it all starts making a LOT of sense. There's no reason for anyone to build a PHP site from scratch any more.