Personal Details

• name: Sam Deane
• email: sam "at" elegantchaos.com
• web: www.elegantchaos.com
• nationality: British

Skills & Experience

I started learning to program some time around 1982, and had my first programming job in 1988. Since then, I’ve been exposed to a lot of different tools & techniques - the following is a list of the highlights. I know some of these very well, whilst with others I have just a basic knowledge. I’m always interested in trying something new though.

Systems: Macintosh, iPhone/iPad, Windows, Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Linux.

Tools: Xcode, VisualStudio, ProDG, Codewarrior, Eclipse, Confluence, Perforce, Subversion, Git.

Languages: C/C++, Objective-C, C#, Python, Java, Ruby, Perl, Shell Script, AppleScript.

Platforms: Cocoa, Carbon, .Net, OpenGL, DirectX, XML, Django, Drupal, MFC, MacApp.

Esoterica: Dylan, Hypercard, SK8, mTropolis, Prograph, Miranda, Smalltalk, Occam, Assembler.

I have worked in many 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 pragmatic and agile programming techniques whenever possible, and try to aim for elegance, simplicity and efficiency. I like to have fun along the way too, and to learn from the people around me.

Employment History

2010 - Present Day, Elegant Chaos

I left Sports Interactive in May 2010 in order to concentrate on developing my own Mac, iPhone and iPad applications.

I am currently working on a number of unannounced projects of my own, and am also consulting/contracting on a couple of third party projects, one an iPhone application and one a desktop Mac application.

2006 - 2010, Core Technology, Sports Interactive

After returning to Sports Interactive, I worked on a number of projects involving our systems libraries and core technology, across Windows, Macintosh, Linux and next generation console hardware. I refactored some of our internal libraries into smaller units and worked with all of our game teams to improve code sharing across the company.

I was 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 evangelized 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 style). My role included the design and implementation of a 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 good access to all of the PS3 documentation, became familiar with the tool chain, 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 refactoring 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 tight deadlines, whilst maintaining compatibility with an existing code base and a game in active development.

A key part of this work was the implementation of a complete 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, and was instrumental in allowing the later change of look & feel when we transitioned from Championship Manager to Football Manager.

1997 - 2001, Elegant Chaos

Elegant Chaos is the name I trade under as a contractor. 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 (Peter Gabriel)

I helped to designed and implement 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.

Based on the same site as Peter’s recording studio, and working with some of his engineers, we were very focused on interactive audio. The engine I developed 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 releases, 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 Mac and Windows multimedia title Sophie's World.

1992 - 1996, ULTRALAB Learning Technology Research Centre, Anglia Polytechnic 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 am an active member of the UK Mac and iPhone development community, and regularly attend conferences such as NSConference. I help to organize a group developers, moderating a mailing list and arranging regular meetings. I was a juror a number of times on the panel deciding the BAFTA Technical Innovation award, and am a member of the ACM.

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.

In the computer science field, my interests are broad. I'm particularly interested in how we go about creating better authoring tools and improving the development process – making it more dynamic, more efficient, more collaborative. I'm also very interested in user interface design and usability, new object oriented languages and artificial life.

Most importantly, I'm looking for the opportunity to do interesting, creative and original work with smart people.

References

References available on request.

I've been being paid to program since 1988, and in that time I've been about a bit! Here are some of the weird and wonderful places I've worked.

Sony

At Sony I work on tools for a team making another Football game, this time an action game for the soon-to-be-released PS3.

Sports Interactive

Sports Interactive used to make the insanely popular game Championship Manager. Actually, they still make it, only now it's called Football Manager, and isn't to be confused with the game called Championship Manager which is now made by Beatiful Game Studios, and published by Eidos, who used to publish the Championship Manager that SI made, but don't any more.

Still with me?

I was first introduced to SI when I ported their Championship Manager 3 99/00 game to the Mac. After that I went away to do other things, but ended up coming back to work for them on CM4, CM 4 03/04, and then FM, during which time I was part of the team that totally revamped the user interface and made it look slightly less like a spreadsheet.

Abbey Road Interactive

I worked for quite a while at Abbey Road's interactive department. Weird place... kind of cool in one way, but also slightly stuck in a time warp.

Had it's advantages though. The parties in Studio 2 were cool, and where else can you look up from your food at lunch only to realise that the folks on the next table are Jimmy Page and Robert Plant... I nearly choked on my soup...

Real World

Peter Gabriel's record label, recording studio, multimedia company, etc. Another weird place, but a lot more chilled out than Abbey Road - probably because it's in the middle of the Wiltshire countyside. Plenty of creative tension and inflated egos of course, but some great stuff has come out of there too, and I for one am a big PG fan so I loved every minute of it.

I spent quite a while at Real World, working on some cool interactive music technology, which has now seen the light of day as Noodle.

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).