30+ years programming. 20+ in a working environment. I have been lucky to experience an exciting period of changes in software development. From COBOL through BASIC and PASCAL to Shell scripting, Perl, PHP and interacting with a variety of Standalone and Enterprise Databases (from DBase/Clipper and MSAccess through to Oracle, Ingres, Postgres, MySQL and MSSQL). Most of my working experience has been in a forward looking and well resourced Software Development section in a Local Authority. This has been a great learning ground for using mixed platforms and innovative techniques to provide bespoke solutions of wide ranging scope.

While often finding use for past tools and techniques, the majority of my work in recent years has been developing extensive applications and systems using "End to End" Browser-Based methods. This primarily involves providing corporate in-house systems deployed on our IBM Z-series Linux Virtual Machines, with a mix of Oracle, Postgres or Ingres databses, accessed via applications built on Apache with PHP (providing HTML/Javascript client).

Recent achievements include developing (almost single-handedly) the following:

1. Corporate Employee Resources System - A suite of applications including: a) Online Payslip access b) A sophisticate and featured rich time and attendance (ClockCard) system that includes distributed smartcard swipe-in consoles. c) Online Policy Document access and confirmation d) A Corporate Absence Recording, Monitoring and Management suite e) Various smaller features - such as Organisation and Location based Emergency SMS Messaging service interface. (Apache/PHP Web Application built around Corporate Oracle Enterprise databases and integrating with 3rd Party Staffing/Payroll systems)

2. A Corporate in-house generic Merge Data and Forms application that allows non-IT users to specify complex document production "Jobs". This includes definition of a range of data sources from flat, delimited ASCII files (transferred by FTP, SAMBA or SCP) or a range of database sources. The suite can be used through it's runtime interface OR by remote calls integrated into other applications or systems. (Apache/PHP Web Application built around Perl scripts invoking the PDF::Reuse and PDF::Reuse::Barcode package).

3. Portable netbook deployment (using a local WAPP stack) to provide online/offline data recording for a corporate Visiting System.

4. Council Tax Bill Production (build on the generic PDF Data and Forms application above).

Still enjoying the varied problem solving working environment.