Personal Details

• name: Sam Deane
• email: sam “at” elegantchaos.com
• web: www.elegantchaos.com
• date of birth: 12th November, 1969
• nationality: British

Skills & Experience

I had my first programming job in 1988. Since then, I’ve been exposed to a lot of tools & techniques, but I’m always interested in trying something new, and I like to learn. Some of the highlights (I’m not an expert in everything on this list, by any stretch of the imagination):

Platforms: Macintosh, Windows, Linux, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, PSP. Tools: XCode, VisualStudio, ProDG, Codewarrior, Eclipse, Confluence, Perforce, Subversion. Languages: C/C++, Objective-C, C#, Java, Python, Ruby, Perl, Shell Script, AppleScript. Frameworks, APIs, etc: Cocoa, .Net, MFC, Dylan, MacApp, PowerPlant, ABC, OpenGL, DirectX, XML, Django, Drupal. Obscure Stuff: Dylan, ScriptX, SK8, mTropolis, Director, Hypercard/Supercard, Pascal, Prograph, Prolog, Miranda, Smalltalk, Occam, BASIC, 68XXX, PowerPC, Z80.

I have worked in many different fields, including multimedia & education, games, systems, audio, client/server networking, general application programming, cross-platform development and porting.

I enjoy designing applications, libraries, frameworks and architectures, as well as actually coding them. I also enjoy communicating my designs to others. I am also very interested in user interface design. I like to employ pragramatic and agile programming techniques whenever possible, and try to aim for elegance, simplicity and efficiency. I like to have fun along the way too.

Employment History

2006 - present day, Core Technology, Sports Interactive

Since returning to Sports Interactive, I have been working on a number of projects involving our systems libraries and core technology, across Windows, Macintosh, Linux and next generation console hardware. I am currently refactoring our internal libraries into smaller units and working with all of our game teams to improve code sharing across the company.

I have also been heavily involved in company-wide technical issues such as coding standards, documentation, programming tools, the hiring of new programming staff, and the creation of a core technology group. I have been evangelizing modern programming practices within the company, such as refactoring, test driven development, and the use of wikis to improve our documentation and communication.

2005 - 2006, Senior Programmer, then Tools Group Lead, Stars Project, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (London Studio)

I worked as a systems and tools programmer on a PS3 action football title (in the Pro Evo / Fifa mould). My role included the design and implementation of a new C++ framework for the construction of a new tools chain, and investigation into options such as C#/.Net for the tools ui. Most of the tools code ran on Windows, but I had excellent access to all of the PS3 documentation, became familiar with the tools, and attended a number of internal seminars and training on various aspects of Cell/Ps3 development.

When the systems and tools responsibilities were later split, I was given the role of leading the tools group, who were responsible for the tools framework, and new asset management and export pipelines

2004 - 2005, Elegant Chaos

During this period I worked on a contract basis for a number of projects. These included building a modified version of the Firefox browser, research and planning into next generation authoring tools for, and occasional consulting work.

I also developed various shareware projects using XCode, Cocoa, Core Data, Applescript Studio, Python and Ruby.

2001 - 2004, Senior Engineer, Sports Interactive

My role at Sports Interactive was concentrated at two opposite ends of the Football Manager / Championship Manager series – the low level libraries, and the user interface.

I redesigned and implemented the foundation and cross platform c++ libraries. This involved re-factoring a large base of very old-fashioned code, attempting to modernise and simplify it, make it more object oriented and more data driven, whilst also adding a lot of new facilities. This had to be done incrementally, to a very tight deadline, whilst maintaining compatibility with an existing code base and a game in active development.

A key part of this work was the implementation of an xml based user interface toolkit, with a dynamic screen layout and skinning system. This was then used to radically update the user interface of the game.

1997 - 2001, Elegant Chaos

Clients included Feral Interactive, FilmFour / Channel 4, The Economist, Abbey Road Studios, and Real World Studios.

Work included porting games to the Mac (Theme Park World, Championship Manager, Black & White), web applications, screen savers, plug-ins, and a number of self-published shareware products.

1996 - 1997, Real World Multimedia

I designed and implemented a low-latency audio engine for mixing, generating, filtering and synchronizing multiple sound channels. I also worked on various tools and plugins for internal use.

As part of Peter Gabriel’s Real World recording studio, we were very focused on interactive audio, and this engine was intended for use on a number of sophisticated music toys for Mac and Windows. It eventually saw the light of day in the product “Noodle”, which appeared as interactive content on a number of Real World cds by artists such as the Afro Celt Sound System and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

1996, Multimedia Corporation

I worked on quicktime, graphics, tools and general programming for the cross-platorm multimedia title Sophie’s World.

1992 - 1996, ULTRALAB Research Centre, Anglia University

This was a research and development role with a very wide brief. I designed and implemented a number of education software packages, some of which were for general release, others for internal use, and others intended as proof of concept.

Part of my role was to investigate new authoring tools and paradigms. This included next generation (at the time) tools such as SK8 and Dylan, which were being developed by Apple’s advanced technology labs.

As a group, we became very interested in the potential of the web, and I developed some very early WYSIWYG html authoring tools and server software to support this research.

1988 - 1989, Centre for Educational Studies, Kings College, London

My work at Kings College included the completion of some existing educational software, and the development of a multimedia training package for Apple UK limited.

Published Software

Includes:

• Football Manager 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 (Sports Interactive 2005-2009)
• Championship Manager 4 02/03, 03/04 (Sports Interactive 2002-2004)
• Championship Manager 3 99/00, 00/01, 01/02 (Feral Interactive 1999-2002)
• Yatch (Elegant Chaos 1998)
• Bookmark Thing (Elegant Chaos 1997)
• Chaos Modifiers (Elegant Chaos 1997)
• Drum / Noodle (Real World 1997)
• Sophie’s World (MMC/MacMillan 1997)
• Training On CD Series (Quay 2 1996)
• Le Carnival Des Animaux (ULTRALAB 1995)
• Xploratorium Workrooms (Xploratorium/ULTRALAB 1992)

Education

Computer Science BSc, 1st Class Honours.

1989 - 1992, Bristol University Department of Computer Science, University Walk, Clifton, Bristol BS8.

Interests & Goals

I’m a big music fan, with eclectic tastes. I also like to participate, and have played bass guitar in various bands.

I read a lot (both fiction and computer science literature), am interested in current affairs, and don’t watch much TV. I play football regularly, and spent seven years studying Tai Chi. I am a season ticket holder at QPR.

On a few occasions I sat as a juror on the panel deciding the BAFTA Technical Innovation award. I also organise a small group of UK based Macintosh developers (http://www.elegantchaos.com/uk-mac-dev).

In the computer science field, my interest are broad, but I’m particularly keen on creating better authoring tools and how to improve the development process - make it more dynamic, more efficient, more collaborative. I’m also very interested in extreme programming, test driven development, user interface design and usability, new object oriented languages and artificial life.

References

References available on request.