Edward Welbourne's Skills

My various employers and colleagues, over the years, have made use of – and given me opportunities to extend – my talents in the following areas:

Computing Languages.

In each context, several:

For products:
C (whose nuances I know in detail) and C++. (ForTran and Lisp have also had their turns.)
For tools:
python, perl, make (particularly the GNU version, with sed, grep and their friends in supporting rôles), Bourne and bash shell scripts. Previously csh, [gn]?awk and DCL have all served. I take pride in having written perl which others found easy to maintain and particular joy in the tools python has enabled me to write.
For documents:
(X)HTML and its family, styled with CSS; made dynamic by ECMAScript or generated dynamically using CGI (I've also dabbled in PHP, but won't claim any particular expertise with it); and illustrated using SVG. I haven't yet entirely forgotten how to use TeX and its kin.

I learn new (programming) languages with ease and am passingly familiar with several more, notably including SQL, ruby and java.

Operating Systems:
Linux at home since 1995 and at work since 2000. At work (mostly previously, but sporadically since), most flavours of Unix, at one stage or another since 1991, particularly Solaris. Before even that, various DEC (VAX) workstations and mainframes running DCL/VMS, with digressions for Cambridge's Phoenix in the 1980s and a pre-history involving paper tape in the 1970s.
Communication:
I Listen. This has been a great asset in learning my way round the various fields into which work has taken me. It regularly helps in finding the right questions to ask and discovering others' perspectives. This enables me to Explain even quite complex things to those who wish to understand them.
Flexibility:
I adapt rapidly to new situations and areas of work. I originally trained as a mathematician pursuing my interest in theoretical physics, and have since made my way in the world as a software engineer. As each need has arisen – as informaticist, tool-wright, integrator and in diverse other rôles – I have developed extensive skills ranging from teaching and document preparation to tool and interface design. Tracking the wiley bug to its lair also often requires deviousness and ingenuity that benefit from keeping a flexible mind.

In the mean time, I've written many tools for my colleagues to use and learned how to make effective use of (and re-program) others they were using, including RCS and CVS – which I have been happy to leave behind in favour of git, in which I continue learning new tricks. I also touch-type, controling emacs via spinal reflexes.

My mother tongue is English; I can also get by in Norwegian – if those talking to me are gentle – and have been known to speak half-way fluent French, 'though I am severely out of practice.


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This page is part of my curriculum vitae.