I'm a computer programmer. I ask computers to do things for me, and every now and then they comply.

I think of myself as a Mac programmer, since that's what I've been doing for most of my professional life. I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I like good human-centred design and more often than not I find myself drawn to their products as a user. This is equally true as a developer - it's generally a pleasure to develop for the Mac (and iPhone/iPad too these days).

Having said that, for the last few years I've been working on the core cross-platform and user interface libraries for a game called Football Manager, which is made for both Windows and Mac, and has other incarnations or related products and tools on Linux, PSP, XBox360 and other things. I also had a brief spell working on tools for Sony, which had to run on Windows, and have ported other games to the Mac from Windows.

All of which means that I'm really not a Mac programmer in my "day job" any more in the strict sense of the word, despite having a Mac on my desk and writing most of my code on it with XCode.

Increasingly though I'm getting back into Cocoa programming by working on Mac and iPhone projects in my spare time. It's definitely the direction I want to go in.

I'm Powered By

Such things as music, books, food, beer, football, politics, and of course computers.

My musical tastes are catholic, and it's hard to know where to start. Probably in the late sixties, I guess.

My taste in literature tends towards science fiction, but there's plenty of room for other stuff, such as contemporary fiction and crime.

My taste in football tends towards Queens Park Rangers, largely because I grew up in Kilburn & Cricklewood at a time where QPR were a half decent team. They aren't really anymore, but one doesn't get to change such things. I live nearer to Crystal Palace now, which was my Grandad's team. They aren't really any good either. Oh well.

My taste in food tends towards spicy things! I'm a vegetarian, which steers things in certain directions too, and my favourite cuisine is probably what you might loosely term "South Indian". I love cooking, but eat far too much junk food.

My taste in beer is Belgian and trappist. I'm not sure about the whole god thing, but those monks certainly know what they're doing on the beer front. My favourite beer is currently St Bernadus Abt 12.

My taste in politics tends towards social justice, secularism, and collective responsibility. There is such a thing as society, and the mess its in is all our faults. I tend away from authoritarianism and dogma, and can't stand people who think that there's much in the world that is black and white. Having said that, I'm not particularly fond of moral relativism either, and I believe that there are certain values that are worth defending, regardless of who they offend. If you're a racist, homophobe, or religious zealot then we probably won't get on too well...

Nerdvana

I'm into most things related to "software engineering", but particularly authoring tools, cool languages and finding good ways to do this whole programming thing better.

I tend to think of programming as a happy blend of science, engineering and art, which is just where I want to be. If pushed, I'd rather be described as a craftsperson than a scientist. I enjoy the process as well as the outcome, but ultimately I want to make elegant stuff that works well - not just stuff that works.

I've got programming experience in all sorts of weird languages, but the one I like best is Dylan. My ideal authoring tool would by a strange hybrid of The Alternative Reality Kit, Hypercard, SK8, Dylan, Python, Smalltalk and Prograph.

My ideal job would be to develop it. Offers anyone?

Past Lives

When not working freelance or on my own software, I've had spells at the following places:

• Sports Interactive (again)
• Sony Computer Entertainment Europe
• Sports Interactive
• Abbey Road Interactive
• Peter Gabriel's Real World
• The Multimedia Corporation
• ULTRALAB
• Centre for Educational Studies

For the formal story, you can read my CV.