Okay, I've been writing this blog for a year and have noticed that 90% of the time that I'm quoted, I'm referred to as "some developer". Clearly just putting my name at the article isn't enough and it's about time I explained who I am.
Well, my name's Julian Birch and I'm a London based developer. I've worked in finance for most of my career with an excursion into dot-commery shortly after the dot-com bust. I also have a peculiar sense of timing. I've had a pretty varied (pronounced: unfocused) career and as a consequence my interests are broad. If I have a philosophy of development, it's that getting things done matter more than anything else. However, my experience tells me that there's a phenomenal number of factors that contribute to long-term productivity. Particular interests of mine are
- coding practices; there's a lot more development than code, but it's fun
- development environments, including build and deployment automation
- process optimization: both cutting red tape and putting sensible controls in place
- bringing "the business" and "development" closer together, and trying to think of better terminology
I'm still learning. I hope to never stop.
A Few of My Favourite Things
Things I very rarely talk about on my blog, in no particular order:
Alphonse Mucha. A Song for Lya. Stop Making Sense. My Wife. Pizza Express. Mr Driller. Crime and Punishment. My guitars. Petaurus Gracilis. The Fora Romana. Peter Grimes.