Age is a mixed blessing. As you get older, physical changes make it harder for you to do the things that you used to. Inevitably illness and age catches up with you and you suffer pains and ills that were not a part of youth. But age also brings with it experience. Much of that experience comes from hard-learned lessons and it as a parent I often wish I could implant that experience in my kids so that they don’t have to go to the School of Hard Knocks to learn the lessons.

This is true not only of my interaction with my children. I often think that I wish I could convey that experience to people that I work with in the software industry. There are many mistakes that I have made that I have learned from. I have tried throughout my career to share this experience where I can. Often it has been ignored and even scoffed at. Others have taken it and used it. Sometimes it has worked to their advantage and other times it has led to them learning a lesson that has been shared with me and we have both learned more.

This blog is the start of something new. Over the course of this blog I will be endeavoring to share some of my experiences in the software development business with those who are interested. I hope that it can be of use to you. If you find the information interesting or useful, please feel free to leave a comment. If you find that you disagree with me, please share your feedback. Learning is a two-way street and I know that I can learn from you too.

I have been in this business for over 20 years. My experience has varied from building financial applications in local government organizations to building tools for software vendors that help application developers build their own applications. I am technology agnostic and have experience in Java, C, C++, C#, VB, .NET, MFC, J2EE, Java EE5, Progress, MySql and many others. My most interesting experiences have always been in integration. 

I will be adding new posts from time to time – not necessarily every day, but at least once a week. I look forward to hearing from you so feel free to drop me a note.