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. Rectify. Pizza Express. Mr Driller. My daughter. Crime and Punishment. My guitars. Petaurus Gracilis. My other daughter. The Fora Romana. Peter Grimes. Jane the Virgin.
Colour Coding 