Joe Freeman's Weblog Musings on Software Development, etc

About

Last updated: February 2010.

I’m Joe. I’m a graduate from Imperial College London, living in the UK. I recently graduated with a MEng in computing, and I’m currently happily employed by Formicary as a software engineer in London. (They’re recruiting smart people. Contact me if you’d like me to put you in touch.)

I’m going to use this blog to write about anything computer-related. Particularly things that I’ve recently learnt, or feel that I have reasonable experience with. I consciously violate the laws of blogging by not focussing on a specific area, and may branch out to things non-computer-related.

Blog comments from humans are very welcome.

If you’d like to contact me directly: joe dot freeman at bitroot dot com.

Why I’ve Started a Blog

Four reasons:

1. Improve my writing skills

People don’t seem to realise how important this is. Writing is a hugely under-rated skill generally, but especially in the software development arena. Being able to communicate your ideas is important, and so is writing documentation—at both the code, and application levels. It is important that other developers understand your ideas so that your abilities can be realised.

2. Organise my thoughts and projects

(And hopefully get feedback on them.)

When I have the time, I enjoy working on small projects of my own. I do this because it’s a good way to learn about things, and I enjoy learning new things. However, a consequence of this is that once I reach the stage in a project that I’ve learnt about the interesting bits, the project tends to get abandoned. By talking about these projects and publishing them, I hope to gain the motivation to complete and polish them.

3. Promote myself

Another great skill for software developers to have is being able to bullshit. Unfortunately, I’m terrible at this. As a result, I’m very reliant on simply being good at what I do.

There’s no point trying to keep anything under wraps on the Internet, so instead I plan to treat this blog as a showcase to future employers/clients. As a result I hope to post with professionalism, albeit rather light-hearted.

4. Everyone else has

At least, so I gather from their blogs. Following crowds is a good thing, despite the rhetorical question about cliffs.