James Whinfrey
I suppose I should say something about the guy behind this site. I started life about 37 years ago, and counting for a while yet I hope, in the Midlands of England.
I’m constantly delighted by how I’ve got left to learn. Every time I start a project in a new field an apparently simple task rapidly reveals increasing layers of complexity, some necessary and some not.
My natural ability to abstract away the complexity in order to understand the ‘big picture’ combined with my education in Chemical Process Engineering makes me skilled at getting to grips with the key processes in innovative applications.
My primary interests are in the following broad aspects of computing:
- The Internet, particularly the communication protocols and security.
- Distributed computing.
- Concurrent application development.
- Data management and distribution.
That’s a summary of where I am now, but where did it all start?
My engineering past.
I spent several years designing power generation and aerospace gas turbines, developing a broad skill set and a reputation for extreme adaptability. This put me firmly into the role of trouble-shooter and if a job was obscure or ill-defined, I’d be the one assigned to find the right questions and solutions. I thrived on this type of work; nothing was fixed and the chances of encountering something new ever present.
But times change, and the work coming through the door became more about crunching numbers than gaining insight. Increasing amounts of time were devoted to administration and less to engineering.
On top of this the commuting and business mileage became harder to take. I found myself in a sedentary life, with work I no longer found stimulating, rapidly becoming demotivated and unhealthy, I seriously needed a change.
I needed more control over my working life, so my own business seemed like an interesting starting point. However, exposure to developing technologies was still very important. Unfortunately, most engineering is very capital intensive and interesting projects require a large team; neither were an option.
The solution.
One engineering discipline stood out: Software Engineering, and the most obvious area for rapid technological change, the Internet. I started with the easy stuff, only to find that Web Application Development isn’t as simple as it appears.
It was this that peaked my interest in distributed computing in general; you get a lot of exposure to these topics whilst maintaining web servers. So after confirming my suspicions that I’m not a talented graphic designer it was clear I needed a more general computing education. Having found the Open University suited me, I enrolled on their Diploma in Computing which I hope to complete in October 2009.
The long term goal is to set up a business to offer process optimisation in any industry. I believe that this route will leverage my existing engineering and project management skills in addition to those I’ve gained in software engineering.
