Simeon Franklin

Skills - It's not just Alphabet Soup

As a developer in various languages and environments for approaching 10 years now I've got a variety of skills. Some of them are old and rusty (Borland C++ Builder, VB6.0, etc). Some I'm no longer interested in exercising (Windows/SQL Server/IIS administration). Consequently rather than the usual Resume-padding practice of listing everything you've ever worked on I'm only listing the skills I'm fluent in and currently interested in pursuing.

Languages and Frameworks

Python - 2 years professional experience, plus basic familiarity for three or four years. Have decent grasp of stdlib, have written daemons, console programs, web development, and Pygame apps.
Django - 2 years experience (since 0.96). Have contributed a few patches during sprints, written a dozen apps, and have deployed dozens of sites using Django in a variety of environments
Javascript - I hated Javascript (well, dom scripting) until frameworks like scriptaculous came along. That said I've written Javascript in the browser since the days of targeting the newly released IE6.0. I have experience with scriptaculous until a couple years ago when I switched to jQuery (this post to my blog back in early 2006 on "Google Suggest" style dropdowns implemented with scriptaculous is still the most widely read thing I've written).
jQuery/jQueryUI - I've been using jQuery and jQueryUI for about two years and am familiar with common jQuery idioms and plugins.
PHP - expert level PHP4 experience (I developed a proprietary CMS from 2001-2004 that still powers a few hundred sites. I've also developed or consulted on dozens of sites written using pre-built frameworks (Wordpress, Joomla, osCommerce) or from scratch. I have deep experience with many PEAR libraries (Flexy templates, DB, pager classes, Structures_Datagrid, etc. As PHP has gotten more usable as a language with the advent of PHP5 I've transition away to Python so I do not have advanced knowledge of many PHP5-only features - I have used autoload, streams, spl, new style classes...
MySQL - I'm familiar with the basic features of MySQL administration and development - mostly MyISAM against InnoDB and frequent use of explain query. I've got a decent grasp of SQL as a whole having previously developed against SQL Server and Access.

Web Development

Besides the server-side and client side tools above web development is ultimately about being able to produce good markup, appropriately styled, and using the many web based tools and API's. I've been the html/css guru at every place I've worked for the last 4-5 years. In addition I've had experience crafting and using web based API's using REST-style architectures and Soap, producing and consuming XML, Json, or even HTML fragments. I've also done a fair bit of work with Google's Mapping API, their visualisation API, and have worked on projects consuming data from sources as diverse as SmugMug, UPS, and USGIS.

Tools and Environments

Linux - I've been a full-time linux user for five or six years now. I have done typical web dev systems adminstration work (installing/updating/configuring Apache, MySql, spamassassin, PHP, Python, etc.) I'm most familiar with Ubuntu but have also run Red Hat variants (Fedora Core, CentOS)
I live in a console environment (screen, emacs, mutt, irssi & bitlbee, IPython, Midnight Commander, etc) all day long - my only essential graphical app is Firefox.

History and Experience

2007-Current : Freelance developer - mostly doing web development with Python and Django and light sysadmin work for regular clients.

2005-2007: Lead Developer for Fire2Wire. Lead team of 2-4 programmers in the Web Division providing custom programming solutions to Fire2Wire customers. Implemented technical training and developed procedures for customer management and team communication in my division and served as a technical resource for other developers.

2000-2004: Developer and Lead Developer for Bluesun Studios. Working on teams of 2-4 provided custom web programming solutions to Bluesun Studios' customers. Progressed from Junion Developer to Lead Developer, chose technical directions (moving from ASP to PHP), and drove technical innovation as Bluesun matured. Wrote custom framework and CMS used by most Bluecms Customers and target of Acquisition by Fire2Wire.

2003-2004: Taught two units of computer science to gifted high school students at a Wood Colony Brethren School. As teacher I lectured once a week for 1-2 hours and met privately with students to assist them with homework. Set up a LTSP server so that existing windows 98 boxes on the school network could load a linux client via a netboot floppy. In the Programming 1 class I taught basic programming concepts (basic syntax, control structures, loops, functions, etc) using Python. In the Programming 2 class the students collaboratively developed a clone of a simple arcade game (snood) using the Pygame python interface to SDL and basic OOP techniques. I developed all curriculum, tests, and lectures, and handout material.

1998-1999: Graduated from CSU Stanislaus with BS in Computer Science. Interned with Bently-Nevada in summer 1998 and freelanced for Sonora Engineering doing VB and Delphi programming.