Skills

Of all environments in which I've developed, the LAMP setup is my overall favorite. Most of my early experience with PHP involved the use of a shared hosting account on a remote server. Then, when I first developed in PHP professionally, running it in CGI mode on IIS. I led the transition at LearningStation from IIS to Apache on Ubuntu, a process that allowed the existing server machines to scale demand by at least an order of magnitude. As usage skyrocketed, the advantage of running PHP on Linux/Apache really became apparent. I recently moved this site onto the Kohana PHP framework and really enjoy it.

After a long history with classic ASP, I transitioned to .NET development in 2005. The ASP.NET MVC2 framework is a solid development platform, avoiding the clutter and confusion that can often sprout from ASP.NET forms development.

I have a long history with SQL Server, plenty of work with MySQL, and some brief experience with Sybase and Oracle. Each has its own advantages and drawbacks, but I've found that a concrete understanding of relational database design allows one to use any platform pretty well.

Solid XHTML, Javascript, and CSS skills round out my presentation chops. Javascript frameworks like prototype, jQuery, and the like have made DOM manipulation and AJAX development a dream. I am not a designer, but I know my way around photoshop and have a good eye for usability.

I'm a firm believer in separating content from presentation whenever feasible, and favor an MVC approach in most cases. Adherence to standards compliance and accessibility is a must. What good is a website if a user can't read it?

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