Tell me about your commercial software experience.

I have been a contributing developer or lead architect of several computer graphics/multimedia/video products:

Tell me about your management experience.

Radius: After long experience as technical lead, and as technical liaison to evaluate deals with other companies, I assumed software management responsibilities at Radius when they went into the Macintosh clone business. I was responsible for a small group (most of my experience is managing between four and seven contributors), but was also largely responsible for growing the group. Since the group was to grow beyond my established experience, it ultimately became my job to qualify and hire my own replacement with the mandated prior experience with a larger team.

Live Picture: At Live Picture, I started again as an individual contributor. My technical competence and proactive work with processes soon led to my assuming responsibility for the company's core technology. I was given multiple projects to manage in their entirety, including one project where one of my team members was my own boss! (This brings all types of interpersonal skills into play.) At Live Picture, I became the first manager to ship quality projects on time in company history. I later established a reputation for doing the same generally with projects I managed. I was also the choice for rescuing projects that had trouble coming to completion or suffered from mission confusion.

Other aspects of my Live Picture experience include the following:

• authored numerous functional and user interface specifications, project proposals, and white papers,
• convinced Fuji Film executives to adopt and fund unconventional Live Picture technology in preference to safer, more conventional Microsoft offering,
• co-authored/presented a technology sales presentation (worth tens of millions of dollars) to Adobe Systems.

Tempest Software: The Professional Services division of Tempest acted as the primary engineering arm of our client, Omnipod. The mission: to develop an ultra-high performance and ultra-high availability internet community for an expanding universe of high-bandwidth users. The Omnipod server provided multiple services such as file sharing, multimedia file playing, browsing public content of other users, email and calendar capability. All of these were packaged in a skinnable, dedicated client running on Windows. All of this was developed in an unheard-of time frame of several months, and was built around a multi-tier design employing the Tempest Messenger System (similar to IBM's MQ Series and Tibco), and a custom application server.

My role was a multi-fold mixture of analysis, project management, client/vendor contact and development.

• Evaluate vendors of existing email and calendar technology that could be augmented and seamlessly and transparently integrated into the Omnipod server. This involved cajoling major players across the country to come to the table without giving away any information about our (at that time) secretive client.
• Spearhead the development of email and calendar capability.
• Develop use-cases and requirements for the entire system, and gain client approval for requirements. This yielded especially impressive results in bringing all stakeholders and developers to a uniform vision of the system, the schedule, and the delegation of work.
• Evaluate, install and train developers in use of an Enterprise-wide requirements tracking system (in this case QSS DOORS). Establishing intranet and internet connectivity with our clients to monitor progress in the system implementation, and to submit change requests.
• Design, implement and maintain an issue tracking system for the project.
• Establish best practices and procedures (coding standards, and version management) for use by the development team.
  
  

  Do you have Windows experience?

  I have worked with NT (as well as other flavors of MS Windows) as part of most work since 1995. I have written several cross platform libraries that run on NT/Unix/MacOS, as well as plug-ins that run on NT/MacOS.

  
  

  Have you developed effective practices in prioritization and scheduling, technical documentation, coding standards, testing, quality assurance, version control, build processes, bug tracking, post-release maintenance, as well as team leadership skills?

  Most definitely yes. Let's address them point by point:

  Prioritization and Scheduling. I have:

  • mastery of the basic tools,
  • realistic expectations and estimating ability based on long experience,
  • significant experience with identifying and mitigating risks early in the development process,
  • experience with publishing live status on intranets, inspectable at any time,
  • simplified at-a-glance status reporting with green/yellow/red status indicators to communicate which aspects of a project were experience difficulties or were in danger of slipping.

  Technical Documentation. I have authored numerous functional and user interface specifications, requirements documents/databases, use case and other UML diagrams, project proposals, and white papers. (Some examples and excerpts are posted on my website www.geboing.com.)

  Coding Standards. I have contributed to coding standards in many companies, and have especially made a significant contribution in the neglected areas of standards that actually have the most impact on the results:

  1. Around 1985, I first observed that a very large class of actual and potential future problems become known to individual programmers as they arise in coding. These are problems that are not convenient to fix right away, and the programmer intends to fix it in the future, perhaps putting in a comment to that effect. Yet this information usually lost not only to his colleagues but to himself. While prose comments are useful, they are only useful when one reads through that part of the code containing the comment.
     I have developed and consistently applied a system of tracking all open issues inside the source code with a painless, stylized commenting convention, tagging these issues as they occur.
     Running a simple 'grep' can turn up all of these areas of a program that will require further scrutiny for one or all of the following reasons:
     • unresolved issues or programmer questions,
     • still incomplete error handling (this is really critical),
     • any temporary constructs that must be removed before shipping,
     • any code with suspect performance,
     • any code that might look wrong but is correct,
     • any code where programmers must tread carefully,
     • any code which purports to be highly optimized,
     • all platform specific code.
  2. I use formal assertions. Ask yourself how many projects you will find in Java or C++ that are subjected to the rigor of an enforced specification. I have adapted and advocate the use of formal assertions in all of my projects, providing enforceable design by contract, which has contributed enormously to the clarity, robustness, debugging, and proper reuse of the code. (A small paper I wrote on this when I first adopted the practice in 1989 is on my website.)
  3. I have established guidelines for making applications leak-proof, exception safe, thread safe, and deadlock proof.

  Testing/QA. Motivated mostly by my own personal obsessions with quality, I have developed excellent cooperative relations with QA departments (and with QA members integrated into my teams for certain projects). I have been proactive in ensuring that test plans are complete, and testers procedures are valid.

  Version Control/Build Processes. This is a particular passion of mine. At Live Picture, Pantone, and Tempest I have been the major force in developing and promoting best practices. (Also see my website for an example paper I wrote on this subject.) I have especially adapted these practices for use with Visual SourceSafe and Perforce.

  Bug Tracking. I have experience with multiple bug tracking systems. Even beyond that, throughout the design/ development/testing cycle, I keep a database of all questions that come up in the course of the project, I prioritize them, assign them a status and record their resolution. Further, if one particular issue is likely to recur, I tag for future reference. At any stage of the project I am always away of outstanding issues.

  Post-release maintenance. I have significant experience with both minor upgrades and major revamps of software projects. My skills, record, and positive attitude to maintenance have caused me to be called in to rescue other manager's projects that were shipped with significant flaws (or could not converge even to a single release).

  Team Leadership skills. Here is a brief outline of my strengths and overall style. I:

  • Motivate: I appreciate people, and it shows. Managing is largely about that, and developers do better work when they feel appreciated, especially when the manager takes the trouble to recognize the unique aspects of each person's contribution.
  • Use others' time well: I don't waste anyone's time. Skilled at facilitating short, productive meetings. Developers appreciate this, and it is all too rare in the industry.
  • Mediate: Programmers and other contributors must "buy in" to the plan to succeed. As contributors to the plan they have significant say, since each one generally knows how to do his job. Conflicts of approach and personalities sometimes arise. I tend to tie-break the technical issues (where that is my role) and have developed some significant finesse at smoothing ruffled feathers.
  • Delegate: A manager cannot do everything, nor should he try. I work with individual contributors to see where they can best contribute with most satisfaction.
  • Buffer: My job is to enable developers to do theirs to the utmost possible. To do that they need to feel their working environment is well ordered, and that they don't have conflicting commitments.
  • Mentor: I am a ready resource for developers who are looking for experience. The best opportunities for mentoring, however, arise from verbally recognizing the programmer's better traits, skills, and accomplishments. This encourages them to open up.
  • Keep an accurate pulse on progress: Part of that requires making developers feel comfortable with honest self-appraisals of their progress, even when they are slipping and generally wouldn't want to admit it.
  • Model: I work to set an example in terms of enthusiasm, professionalism, courtesy, and tact.
  
  

  Do you have C++ experience?

  I have over twelve years of hardcore C++ experience, developing everything from shrink-wrap software, to internet servers, to device drivers. I have worked with C++ extensively from the time the only available compiler was the cfront preprocessor, and the only book on the subject was Stroustrup's first edition of The C++ Programming Language.

  
  

  Do you have Unix experience?

  During the last three years, my work experience was focused on Solaris and HP-UX flavors of Unix. I run (Debian) Linux at home. I have done other cross-platform work prior to that, developing libraries for multiple operating systems where Unix (e.g. SGI Irix) was among them.

  
  

  Do you have MacOS experience?

  I have ten years of experience designing, and implementing applications and system software for the Macintosh. My credits include:

  • Cricket Draw III (Illustration)
  • MacroMind Director (Multimedia)
  • MacroMind Action (Multimedia)
  • ImMix VideoCube (Broadcast Video)
  • Radius RocketShare (System Software)
  • Live Picture (Prepress Imaging)
  
  

  Do you have experience with sockets?

  I have written C++ socket handling primitives for TCP/IP (under Solaris) as part of Omnipod Internet Server project. I have had further experience with other software that communicate via the same.

  
  

  Do you have experience with threaded software?

  I have experience with posix threading APIs. I have extensive experience with multithreaded and multiprocessor code. I have authored cross-platform synchronization primitive APIs for MacOS/Unix/Win32. I also have significant experience with other types of asynchronous coding, and real-time software for broadcast video. I have solved some particularly difficult problems of supporting multiple processors on the MacOS where the operating system services are not available to multiple processors (or rather were not, at that time). I wrote APIs to simplify development for TI MVP CPU (RISC+DMA Controller+4 DSP architecture). I have experience rewriting single threaded applications to be thread safe. I have written deadlock-proof code.

  
  

  What is your messaging experience?

  • I have designed/implemented messaging middleware for RocketShare multiprocessor architecture.
  • I have designed/implemented internet servers using the Tempest Messenger System, and XML-based middleware system comparable to Tibco and MQ Series.
  
  

  How are you communications skills?

  Samples of my writing are available at my website www.geboing.com. In addition I have done the following: APIs. I have authored several APIs and developer toolkits. My first exposure to the computer field was as a technical writer. Specifications. I authored numerous functional and user interface specifications, project proposals, and technology white papers. Sales. I was the author presenter of successful sales presentations. I sold Chevron a still-unfinished animation system against more established competitor with a ready product. I convinced Fuji Film executives to adopt and fund unconventional Live Picture technology in preference to safer, more conventional Microsoft offering. I co-authored and presented technology sales presentation (worth tens of millions of dollars) to Adobe Systems. Evangelism. I successfully worked with industry vendors to establish the first standard protocols for driving VTRs, Laserdisc, and Audio CD players. I have made successful presentations to user groups. Meeting Facilitation. Experience running short, productive meetings. No attendees have ever been known to cringe at an invitation. Teaching/Lecturing. I have taught computer graduates in the communications department at Seton Hall University.

  
  

  Do you have server experience?

  I am currently working with the JBoss J2EE server (comparable to WebSphere or Weblogic), and with the Jetty and Tomcat servlet engines. At the current moment I am focusing on JSP/Servlet development with JDBC.

  I have worked on the following servers: Omnipod Internet Server (a multi-tiered system based on Tempest Messenger middleware (comparable with Tibco or MQ Series), and custom Application server. I lead the Live Picture Network Publishing Server team, a largely Perl/CGI based effort with glue to Database and Document Management system.

  Do you have experience with internet-related technologies?

  I have been Project Lead on one Internet server, and responsible for Project Management responsibilities for another. I have worked with web servers, HTML, XML, Perl/CGI, some Java, and JavaScript. I have worked TCP/IP, POP, IMAP protocols. I have authored socket classes from scratch. I am currently working on acquiring experience with J2EE architectures.

  
  

  Do you have a degree?

  I do not have an academic degree. Some companies demand a computer science degree. Others require 'equivalent' experience. It's possible they both miss the mark.

  A degree is no guarantee (triteness aside). I wouldn't dispute that some graduates have received excellent training. However, I have worked with many computer science graduates who acquired little knowledge of software engineering as a discipline, but focused rather on specific domain knowledge (e.g. 3D visualization). Furthermore, I am certain the engineers responsible for the Ariane 5 disaster all met very rigorous educational requirements.

  Neither is experience a reliable indicator. I have worked with developers who after a decade of experience were still fond of whining that they were never given enough time to 'do it right.'

  So, what is key? Can the candidate demonstrate that he possesses the right combination of talent, attitude, and experience to fill the position?

  • Does the candidate believe he has a responsibility to both meet the schedule and 'do it right'?
  • Will his initial design withstand inevitable changes in the spec?
  • Does his code have real longevity? Is his work a good investment?
  • Does his code follow any rigorous specification?
  Any candidate who can answer 'yes' to all of the above will meet the true requirements implied by the advanced degree.
  
  

  Are you a 'Real Software Engineer'?

  Yes. Under the 'detail-oriented' section above, I clarified aspects of my work that qualify me as detail-oriented. I think they also show that I am obsessed with software engineering, and put into practice what most engineers either talk about or are not even familiar with.

  Some specific qualities I bring to my work are:

  • Clear, maintainable code
  • Built-in enforceable specifications (formal assertions/design by contract)
  • Minimal surface area to APIs
  • Loose coupling between modules
  • True Model/View/Controller separation
  • Well-isolated platform support packages with portable core code
  • Forward looking design (I won't put in unnecessary features, but I anticipated future directions are always accounted for in the design)
  
  

  What else should we know about you?

  My basic strengths are: core competence, technical excellence, intuitive grasp of the correct abstractions, clarity of purpose, initiative, drive, infectious enthusiasm, honest assessment, professionalism, attacking risk, command of details, communicating well, winning ways.