is my favourite non-fiction author.
reginald braithwaite
career
I am a software developer and development manager with nearly twenty years of professional experience. I have created a hugely successful software development tool suite, JProbe, in an Independent Software Vendor (“ISV”) environment. I have also created business software, both Enterprise Class Software (with 3,000,000+ external users) and Software that Powers the Enterprise (200 – 2,000 internal users). I have led teams from three to twenty-three in size. I have also been a top major accounts sales executive and also held positions as a marketing manager and copywriter.
I develop software for Mobile Commons. We use (amongst other things) Ruby, Rails, and Java to “make it simple for businesses to quickly create mobile applications accessible from every phone.” Prior to this, I led a team developing and maintaining the on-line service offering—in partnership with an internal team—of one of the world’s largest financial organizations. I also speak at users’ group meetings and conferences. I have delivered software development training, development management training, and sales training.
My career focus is managing the requirements-quality-time triangle under demanding circumstances. My experience working in the marketing and finance areas of the industry, combined with my technical chops and pragmatic management experience provide me with the ability to make the right choices about people, process, and features that gets the software shipped.
technology experience
I have spent most of my career creating cross-platform (and recently cross-browser) software for Unix, Macintosh, and Windows systems, not to mention MS-DOS, CP/M and MP/M. My professional programming experience includes work with Ruby, Java, C/C++, Scheme, JavaScript, SQL, Pascal, and Basic. I have developed web applications, stand-alone desktop applications, client-server applications, and multi-user terminal applications. I have worked with J2EE, Ruby on Rails, and various OS toolboxes/APIs.
My technical speciality is developing infrastructure (such as domain-specific or embedded languages, testing frameworks, macros, and libraries) to accelerate development and ease maintenance/reengineering. This technical approach integrates strongly with my iterative development experience.
Some of the more interesting efforts include developing a Scheme interpreter in Java, a Smalltalk-like web template language that predated Java Server Pages, numerous dynamic Java class generators, and a dependency injection architecture predating Spring.
interests
My long-time research interest was applying statistical analysis of empirical data to predicting the outcome of software development projects. I am currently on hiatus from thinking about developing software more effectively in order to focus on actually developing software most effectively.
I am a lifelong cyclist, I'm an avid rock climber, and I have just taken up diving. I am interested in Math, Logic, and solving puzzles. Raymond Smullyan
more information
I write a technical weblog about passionate programming. It is most likely to appeal to people who love what they do and do what they love. My résumé is available for download (PDF). I do not speak for my employer or of any other group you may think of.
Stop by flickr.com for entirely irrelevant snapshots of my life offline.
contact
For email, most people call me reg, and you know that this page is hosted at braythwayt.com.
the answer to an infrequently asked question
Raganwald is my own made-up variation on the Norse name Ragnvald, which is the origin of the Norman name Reginald (it actually goes back to Sanskrit, so it is loosely related to the Indian name Raj). Braythwayt is a very rare spelling for my surname.
(I first encountered “Braythwayt” in a P.G. Wodehouse short story when the hapless Bingo Little abandons Honoria Glossop to chivvy Daphne Braythwayt about, and Honoria assumes Bertie loves her and accepts what she thinks is his implied proposal… But perhaps you should read the story for yourself.)
