Summary Information

My Wiki Links

ScottSanbar/TipsAndTricks

My Contributions

randconverse - a test package for learning Gnu AutoTools and Debian/Ubuntu packaging techniques

About Me

Introduction

I am brand new to the Ubuntu community. I am closely following the tutorials and path laid out in the Community Wikis for prospective developers. I am very satisfied with the robust, trouble free nature of most of my experiences so far. However, I have a huge amount to learn, and realise that it will be years of commitment to accomplish my goals. This will include a lot of reading and learning, coding, reading code, trial and error, formal and informal training and much more. However, it is what I want to do and I am committed to it as a long term goal.

My Work History

I have been a programmer since before 1987, the year I graduated college. Below you will find a detailed history of my work experience and growth as a software developer and computer systems and network administrator.

First experiences

My first experience was on an Apple II doing BASIC and 6502 assembler. I do not remember exactly when that was, but it was when the Apple IIs first started being sold, around 1977-1978. That would make me around 14-15 years old when I first rode my bike down the street to High Technology Computer Store and sat down and became a fixture there writing software on their Apple IIs.

They also had some IMSAI and other CP/M machines running on Intel's hot new chip the 8080, an 8 bit precursor to the 8086/8088 family of processors that IBM would eventually use in their IBM ATs and XTs which would run Microsoft MS-DOS. I played around with them, though I did not program the CP/M machines at that time.

CP/M and MS-DOS Era

I soon stopped playing around with the 6502 based Apple II and during my later years in college started working on IBM XT clones running MS-DOS. I both administered them and developed some software for them using Borland Turbo Pascal, which I got a lot of experience in through the years. I was also active on the FidoNet echoes . FidoNet echoes were similar to Forums on the Internet, but based on a backbone of communicating privately maintained computer bulletin board systems. They communicated mainly over phone lines with modems. I helped solve problems in Turbo Pascal on the echoes and developed in Turbo Pascal and assembler

After graduating College in 1987, I continued working on MS-DOS machines. I also worked a little on an interesting multi-board, multi-user "network in a box" system based on a CP/M overlaid with a multi-user extension to the core OS called N*Star (or something like that - memory fails). I obtained Borland Turbo Pascal for CP/M and developed software for that system as well, thereby getting experience administering and developing for CP/M machines.

Early Windows Era and Networking with MS-DOS and Novell Netware

Eventually, Microsoft Windows appeared on the scene, and I embraced it starting with Windows/386. When Windows 3.0 came out, it was a much better system, and improved with Windows 3.1, Windows 3.11 and Windows for Workgroups 3.1 and 3.11, which provided fairly robust peer-to-peer networking. All of those versions of Windows ran on MS-DOS as the core OS providing hardware and file system support.

For networking with MS-DOS and Windows, there were a variety of peer-to-peer networks that ran on top of MS-DOS. Eventually, Windows for Workgroups most of those for peer-to-peer networking. For larger businesses client-server networks like Novell Netware were used. Initially I worked only with peer-to-peer networks for small businesses, including my main job and side consulting through my company, Advanced Micro Consulting.

However, I invested some money to became a Certified Netware Engineer (CNE) for Novell Netware. Novell Netware was by far the most deployed network operating system during the MS-DOS and early Windows days for PC networks. My CNE credential and experience gave me my first real break into mainstream big business computing with a job I got through a placement agency in Denver, Colorado, USA. The skills and experience I gained there led to my big break into a real engineering job.

My Big Break - Getting Hired at Rockwell NAAD

I eventually lucked out and got hired as an IT guy at Rockwell North American Aircraft Division on the B1 Bomber project at and around Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma, USA. Initially working with Novell Netware in an enterprise environment linked with the military network at Tinker (MILNet). I did desktop, enterprise server and network administration. Shortly after I started working for Rockwell, The Boeing Company bought them out, and I worked on transitioning the "legacy" Novell/MS-DOS/Windows 3.11 systems to Windows NT 4.0.

I became a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) for Windows NT 4.0 to gain the necessary skills to help in that transition. Along with daily administration duties, the transition effort was my main contribution in my IT role. It was very challenging. I was in IT 1.5 years of my 11.5 years at Rockwell and Boeing.

Software Development - Avionics

I requested and was allowed to transfer to software development after the successful transition effort. I became an embedded software engineer. I started out doing Avionics (aviation electronics, or flight management) software development. We coded in Ada, JOVIAL and some assembler. I used a variety of languages for ancillary tools and support software, including C, C++, Unix shell scripting, Visual Basic and HTML (and others). Our development tools were hosted on Sun Unix boxes, but we cross-compiled the code onto PowerPC embedded targets that went into the Bomber and flew the plane. This would be classified as real-time and embedded programming.

Software Development - Simulation

After being blessed to work on a major upgrade effort to a successful conclusion with a wonderful and capable team of engineers for the avionics, I transitioned to a much smaller project doing a total upgrade of a legacy simulator that required autonomous integration of software, firmware and hardware by a group of 10 or so engineers plus lab support personnel. We interacted heavily with our engineering customer throughout the project, to our great advantage.

This project was my greatest career challenge, and I call it my "engineering crucible". In the earliest stages, the effort was floundering, but the small team came together in a unique and wonderful way and in the end we delivered on schedule and in the end a higher quality system than I feel was originally envisioned. It was the most demanding 3 years of my life, but was also the most rewarding in retrospect. It was mainly a C and FORTRAN effort, with some assembler, shell scripting and Visual Basic for tools support.

Software Development Tools and Systems

At Boeing, the software development tool chains and targets were mainly Unix variants or more or less Unix-like real time systems. At times we coded software or firmware that basically ran on the bare hardware and firmware without any real OS at all. I did code a little on Linux, including Red Hat Linux and Yellow Dog Linux. I found Linux very similar to Unix but somewhat more exciting and cutting edge.

There were many smaller projects and side efforts I accomplished while at Boeing for which I learned and used a large variety of software, firmware and hardware tools. My time at Boeing stands as my most satisfying career accomplishment, and I count myself as very lucky to have spent those years at such a fine company and on a challenging and rewarding project.

Personal Efforts on My Own Time

On my own time, I have maintained Red Hat and Fedora Linux PCs and have done some programming on them to learn Linux programming skills and familiarise myself with the OS architecture and development tools. During my years as a developer, I successfully conceived of, developed and sold one unique network security program and developed another network security and administration aid which I never released in full to the public because of its potential use by nefarious hackers.

Both of the programs were, I believe, new technology that was unique at the time I invented them and developed them into functioning products. The first was call NoStop (then KeyStop due to a competing name conflict), the second is called INETrace. I am considering bringing INETrace into my Ubuntu efforts as an application project. Early in my career, I created and ran a successful small computer consulting company part time called Advanced Micro Consulting, but shut it down when I moved to Colorado.

My Current Set up

I currently have an Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty" i386 PC. With the help of the Ubuntu Wikis and community I have successfully set up my development environment and produced my first "test" package for learning and uploaded it to LaunchPad.

I run TightVNC on the Ubuntu box as my VNC server for remote desktop since my Ubuntu box is essentially "headless" and use RealVNC to obtain a full Gnome desktop in a window on my main Windows Vista PC. The Ubuntu PC seems much more stable than my main Windows machine. I generally reboot my Vista machine at least every 3-4 days. I own Windows 7, and need to transition to it to possibly solve some of those issues, but have not yet because it would be a lot of work. Since I have installed Ubuntu and upgraded to 11.04, I have not had to reboot once due to memory leaks or stability issues.

Me and the Communities

The Ubuntu community ethos is very positive as stated, the tools are excellent and the Wikis are good quality. The people are helpful and positive in the IRC channels and I find the nuts and bolts of the packaging, build environment and other development tools to be very usable and robust. The Website tools and information are clean and well done and seem overall to be actively maintained and usable.

As I get involved with the Ubuntu community I am finding it a very rewarding and positive experience. I am very impressed and excited to have found Ubuntu as an outlet for my creative energies. I am positive that one day, given patience and hard work I can become a valuable contributor to the Ubuntu effort.

I am also interested in becoming involved in the Debian community since as developer I believe I need to have the capability to package and develop for Debian as the immediate and most important upstream feed to Ubuntu.

I am happy to be on board, and plan on staying in community efforts for a long time.