A flexible and experienced professional scientist and software developer working with Java, Perl, Ruby on Rails, MySQL and Linux to solve large-scale data processing and management challenges, with a strong commitment to user support.
I began working with computers almost 30 years ago. I have developed significant projects using 19 languages1 and 7 major operating systems2. I am currently actively working on projects in Java, Perl, Ruby on Rails and MySQL.
My key Java competencies include GUI development using Swing, database client programming with JDBC, component monitoring with JMX, LDAP client programming with JNDI, email management with JavaMail and data encryption with JCE.
I am a MySQL database administrator, with particular experience in installation and tuning of servers and in the use of replication for backups and failover. I am also a database architect and I develop client code in Java and Perl.
I have 20 years experience of Unix and Unix-like operating systems, including system administration, software installation and systems programming in C.
I was an early adopter of Internet technologies: I began using the JANET X.25 network for scientific research in 1984, and I was among the first users of the Internet when it reached Britain in 1991. I have owned my own Internet domain and web site since 1998 and I am familiar with the technical aspects of a wide range of Internet protocols (including HTTP, SMTP, DNS, POP3, IMAP and NTP), with current web technologies such as AJAX and with security issues including data encryption and secure Internet communications.
In December 2006, following three years of study in my own time, I was awarded the Open University's postgraduate diploma in computing for commerce and industry. My study programme included modules on project management, e-commerce, user interface design, the issues surrounding legacy software and the reasons why large I.T. projects fail.
1 BASIC, FORTRAN 77, REDUCE, EXEC2, Maple, BCPL, Forth, Rexx, Bourne shell, C, PostScript, TeX, C++, Visual Basic, Perl, HTML, Java, SQL, Ruby.
2 GEC OS/4000, IBM VM/CMS, DEC VAX/VMS, Unix (System V and BSD), Linux, Windows XP, Mac OS X.
Copyright 1995-2010 by David Harper and Lynne Marie Stockman