• Employed to automate and improve the largely manual build process which is based on an aging in-house tool
• Multi platform UNIX/Windows
• Linux shell scripting, PERL
• MSI / WIX

(Online Gaming - Gibraltar )
Configuration/Build/Release manager for web based project based on J2EE.
• Administer Version Management system (CVS) and build system (Maven / Anthill)
• Documented the system and procedures
• Main task was to examine a comprehensive but complicated Branch and Merge method and to create an alternative simpler mechanism.
• Shell-scripted the operations
• Hands-on CVS, Maven, Anthill, Fisheye
• Windows and UNIX builds
• Coordinated builds and releases from teams in Gibraltar and Kuala Lumpur (Malasia)

(Finish mobile operator - Helsinki)
Configuration/Build/Release manager for web based project based on J2EE/WebLogic.
• Administer Version Management system (CVS)
• Created build and deployment framework. (shell script + ANT)
• Responsible for release build and deployment strategy and operation
• Hands-on CVS, ANT
• Shell-scripted the operations
• Windows and UNIX builds
• Responsible for moving from informal system to formal builds and releases

Infrastructure support and technology transition facilitator. This somewhat unusual position involved identifying the VMS skills needed to transition the development , system building, code release and support of a major software system under ALPHA/VMS, and to ensure that the receiving team were adequately trained. This primarily involved the following:
• The CMS version management system
• The MMS build system
• The DCL scripting language
• The specific VMS system services used.
This has involved me in understanding the architecture of the system, understanding and suggesting improvements in the build and release system, and preparing training material for the receiving team.
Teams were located in both the UK and India.

Release Coordinator for web based project based on Oracle/J2EE.
• Administered Version Management systems
• Created build and deployment framework.
• Migrated version management system between PVCS, CVS and finally Subversion
• Responsible for release build and deployment strategy and operation
• Hands-on PVCS, CVS, Subversion, ANT, Cruisecontrol
• Windows and UNIX builds
• Responsible for creation of Configuration database

Configuration Management team leader for one of Accenture’s government projects. The four-man CM team was implementing the transition from previous ad-hoc procedures based on an ORACLE product (SCM) to a totally formal and documented system.

I designed a release and build system which manages
• Multiple parallel development streams – CVS and ANT
• Distributed development teams (multiple UK sites and India)
• JAVA / J2EE / ORACLE applications
• Platforms are SOLARIS (SUN UNIX) and MS Windows
• Development teams were located in the UK and India

The system used
• CVS version manager with WINCVS front end
• ANT application builder

As well as team leading my personal role was to automate and rationalise the component build mechanism and fully document the system.

Small business solutions. Through my company White Box Ltd I have provided IT services based on web design to local small businesses and charities but this is very much a back-burner activity now.
• Internet web sites (static and dynamic) , CD web publicity (web site on CD)
• I developed a web-based Specification Writer which is an authoring tool which allows web designers to design templates for guiding web users through product specifications. (JAVA, HTML)
• Training material and courses.
Prototyping I have been working with a small group of people prototyping web-based business ideas. I decided to get in at the coal face and have been involved in all details from HTML, CGI and many aspects of programming right through to creating business proposals and financial projections. We have yet to strike it rich.

(continuing contract extensions and one break)

I was team leader for the Software Configuration Management for the company’s strategic Administration and Billing systems and associated systems. I designed the version management system, the promotion system and the build mechanism which has lasted more than 12 years. I wrote large amounts of the DCL procedures and the entire callable C interface to MMS and CMS. My team also took under its wing and managed certain legacy systems based on PVCS and other RCS derivatives.

My main job was establishing procedures both manual and software controlled for this large VMS based application which consisted of 3000 software modules written in COBOL, PRO-COBOL (Oracle). Oracle procedures, packages and triggers, Assembler, C, Fortran, and a variety of minor languages.

My system supported between 30 and 150 developers at any one time, working on up to 13 independent application areas each with two, three or four parallel streams of development (future releases) being promoted through a DEV, TEST, UAT, LIVE chain. The system I implemented successfully administered these multiple streams and, as well as providing secure version management, promotion and build mechanisms, provided a management information system on parallel development hot spots and the impact analysis of code changes.

The system I designed was such a success (the System Test teams would eventually not accept any code which had not come via my system) that I was subsequently asked to modify the code to remotely accommodate various UNIX and PC applications (using client/server software which I developed to link with the original RCS, SCCS and MAKE utilities) before a strategy had been adopted for those two platforms. Once again this was a success.

I was also responsible for training new developers in the company’s software development methods.

I was asked from time to time to investigate other SCM tools and migrated some applications to PCMS, which was rejected, and then PVCS which was adopted for a couple of years. For the PVCS implementation I programmed the callable PVCS interface. Under new management the decision was made to migrate to CONTINUUS and several pilot projects were set up under CONTINUUS but were subsequently discontinued. For this exercise I attended various CONTINUUS training courses.

The SCM team varied in number, depending on the number of parallel applications we were supporting. At one time I supported it alone for 18 months, and on other occasions I had up to six people working for me. I eventually left Cellnet when the SCM was outsourced. I spent two months training my successors.

During my time at Cellnet I was seconded to other activities because of my experience in other areas. As an example I was asked to reverse engineer a communications package written in Assembler and COBOL, to produce a systems specification from the undocumented code when the author was no longer available. I had in fact done the same thing on a much bigger system some years earlier.

(approximately 10 years overall between 1978 and 1992, various contracts)

During this time I operated in a variety of roles: as a software engineer, writing system level code and as an advisor to domain experts such as linguists.

I organised the configuration management using VMS, CMS, MMS, DCL and C for the groups I worked in.

I worked for several years on DEC Internationalisation products, including the incorporation of the X/Open XPG4 WPI (Worldwide Portability Interface) into the VAXC run-time library. The purpose of these products was to allow developers to call language-independent utilities for things like number formatting, date processing and sorting and searching, which would subsequently work whatever language and codeset was chosen by the user at run-time. So for instance a VMS user could choose to work in Spanish or Japanese and the VMS SORT utility would work properly if the writers of that SORT utility had used the language independent utilities.

I designed and implemented procedures for transparent application handling of international text including complex multi-byte Asian code sets. My routines were included in the VMS run-time library.

I designed and created a comprehensive validation suite

I was a senior member of the XPG4 design team, designing and producing library components as well as advising on, and reviewing other component designs. (VMS, UNIX).

My speciality was sorting and searching international text including Asian code sets. I was also responsible for the code management of the code developed in Reading. A complication was due to dual-site development, since our code was called by and called code being developed in Maynard (U.S.A) and had to be incorporated into the main VMS system builds.

DECtalk (an internationalised text to speech synthesis system).

I provided support software (in C), algorithm and programme design, and also software support to a team of linguists. Our job was to take the groundbreaking system developed at M.I.T by Dennis Klatt and convert it to an internationalisable product. The DECtalk voice, produced by formant synthesis, is perhaps best known as the ‘voice’ of Stephen Hawkins.

I provided ad-hoc language analysis tools(C and DCL) , managed the CMS libraries and multiple-variant build procedures, and created the extensive language-independent validation suite. (VMS C).

I devised an innovative phonetic grep utility for pattern matching sounds with allowable variations.

GMS (Graphics management system).

I was responsible for devising, implementing, and applying certain formal DEC QA procedures to the package before release; namely a thorough internal Verification and Test procedure, the Installation procedure and the Installation Verification procedure. This involved writing programs in every supported language (C, assembler, COBOL, Fortran, Bliss etc.) to interface with and to exercise all APIs.

Provue (a hardware/software package for managing real-time production-monitoring graphics on a user specified network of VAX and PDP-11 machines.)

The system used its own network protocol to manage a distributed client/server architecture such that plant monitoring sensors, control software and display processors could be distributed in a totally flexible and user-defined network of VAXes and PDP11s.

I was responsible for designing and implementing continuing software upgrades to the drivers and middleware and the version control and system builds for the many variants of the software which could be produced. (C, macro-11, macro-32)

I provided software support and training to clients, and assisted them to develop their control software using the then less familiar technique of asynchronous client/server programming.

I would take a network of newly installed VAX and PDP-11 machines at client sites in the U.K. and Europe and install and configure the software and just ‘get it working’. The buck stopped here.

Others, including
• Drivers for VMS and RSX (Macro-32 and Macro-11)
• Application development of a process monitoring system (RSX Fortran)
• The support and maintenance of the Teletext system used by many national T.V. networks. (RSX Macro). I interfaced the Teletext system to the ITV results system for the 1987 general Election

(approximately four years overall between 1979 and 1985, various contracts)

Shell UK Oil. I did the system design and was part of the very small implementation team producing a real-time simulation and scheduling system for all Shell rail transport on British Rail tracks, and within the British Rail timetable. (RSX Fortran). The system was an outstanding success (previous attempts having failed) and the success was subsequently the subject of a full-page article in one of the computer magazines with my own contribution being highlighted.

I was also responsible for the Operation system builds and the application system builds.

Shell International. I provided software consultancy and programming for a range of DEC and Prime based application teams. I instituted a program of CM and system builds across the VMS machines.

Shell UK Oil. I designed and wrote the PDP side of a PDP/IBM link to integrate the Shell taker scheduling system more fully into the B.R. timetable which was read in real time from the BR scheduling computer. This also involved reverse engineering the undocumented BT protocol.

Shell Marketing. I performed a feasibility study into using RAPID/3000 (a 4GL database programming framework for the HP3000) by developing a prototype (but real) application.

Shell Expro. I devised and produced fully documented guidelines for developing systems using RAPID/3000 and oversaw the retro-fitting of the standards to some half a dozen applications.

Shell Marine. I was confronted with two VMS based applications, the authors and maintainers having left no useful documentation. I reverse engineered the system back from the code to a high-level design and produced fully documented procedures for daily operations, software development and system builds.