Hi!
Hi!
I'm John. I’m a freelance software engineer and writer living in Nottingham, UK. I grew up near L.A. I make native iOS, Android and JavaScript software for clients, ranging from radio and podcast tools to the management of scientific data.
My programming experience stretches back to my youth, during which I was obsessed with Commodore Amiga computers and earned extra credit from a kind math teacher after he discovered I had spent his trig lectures writing games on the green monochrome screens of the class’s VAX mainframe about dudes with swords fighting wizards.
Lately I’ve done things like design and build an app for a conservation project in Madagascar, where scientists needed a new way to measure human activity in coral reefs. It's being used on the beach by octopus fishers. I also do stuff with Unix, Web servers and relational databases. I've also been a journalist and book author whose work has been featured in the New York Times and on NPR.
I build, document and advise clients on how best to implement:
* JavaScript Web applications (NodeJS, React)
* Native phone apps (Swift/Objective-C, Java/Kotlin)
* Databases (SQL, realtime document stores)
* Friendly UIs for conversing with creaky old data collections
* Custom podcast software: paywalls, animated chat rooms, Icecast streaming
““Computer programming is an art, because it applies accumulated knowledge to the world, because it requires skill and ingenuity, and especially because it produces objects of beauty.””
Running in Amsterdam (at right) with wife Mary, as seen in a recent television piece on enthusiasm for Dutch track and field. (True story.)