Hi. I'm Doug and I've been programming since teaching myself BASIC at the age of 8 on a Commodore Vic-20 with 5 kilobytes of RAM.

In the subsequent 40 years of my life I've learnt countless new languages; always self taught. My code probably doesn't look like a Computer Science Major but it works reliably. I don't get too hung up on theory. I focus on delivering robust solutions that cover 100% of the required functionality. In my career despite lack of a tertiary degree I have beaten PhD's for roles in financial services.

After a very long Crypto detour I am looking to re-enter the developer workforce and the purpose of this site is to demonstrate my current abilities. See my crude CRUD example for some function (which I am much better at than form). It started life 24-Dec-2024 as one of those oh so useful Node JS examples that opens port 3000 for listening and proudly announces it to the console. I really just can't get enough of those examples :)

Despite my enthusiasm for Node I expect I could only be considered for a junior role at best given my limited experience with it so far. Also my JavaScript is good but needs improvement. I'm pressing on with learning it anyway as I just love programming and I'm falling pretty hard for my shiny new asynchronous database calls.

My flagship skill is definitely SQL. Specifically the Microsoft SQL Server Suite though I am also proficient with Sybase and MySQL (the syntax of which I concede I find a little tiring). I'm also pretty handy with Python and operating system wise it pains me to say it but Windows with the Linux Subsystem (Ubuntu) has won me over after many years of dual booting and I also use a MacBook sometimes; I really just love sitting at a desktop computer to do my programming.

If there's anything that needs improvement it would have to be source code management. This is primarily because most of the roles I've had in the past I've been the sole developer. I've got my VS Code integrated with GitHub and that is working nicely but branching and merging is something I would have to do very carefully.

I'm also very quick at learning the requirements of the business in detail. For example I supported an Structured Credit portfolio team in one of my roles who traded in Asset Backed Securities such as Collateralised Debt Obligations. You won't hear much about them today though as they basically caused the Global Financial Crisis. Ooops. I guess my point is it doesn't get more complicated than that in Financial Services but I was able to handle it.

If you'd like to know more including the technologies that are presenting this content to you please contact me. I'd love to just disclose this to you all right here in detail but the log files seem to suggest caution against such unbridled enthusiasm. Safety first.