Finally getting around to introducing myself
Hi Steemit community, this Phil.
I am now what we used to refer to as a "graybeard" given that I have gray beard, and I've been cranking code since 1980. As one might imagine, a career spanning decades has permitted me to work in many domains, from rocket science to medicine to finance and many others. A common theme being the use of Object Oriented languages and development techniques, and distributed computing.
As for the non-computing bits that otherwise make me human, I am married, have been for 25 years to the same amazing woman, I have two awesome kids making their own marks on the world, and a little beagle who is my constant companion. Back in the day I had an adventurist spirit, I enjoyed skydiving and staying up late at clubs listening to alternaive bands among other things. These days life passes by a little more slower pace. I am happy when I beat my average time on the New York Times crossword, and I enjoy my monthly poker night with friends.
More recently, I was drawn to the world of blockchain development by a happenstance encounter with the one and only Nathan Hourt, aka modprobe. Nathan was kind enough to work with my colleagues and me to get us from no understanding of blockchain at all to at least a basic grasp of the concepts involved.
Naturally Graphene is the implementation I have been learning as time permits. I haven't had an opportunity yet to contribute any code to the Graphene community but I expect to do so soon. Although not code, I have made one contribution in the form of an essay which I intend to be part 1 of a series. You can check it out at:
Looking forward, I am working to stimulate interest in blockchain use in the St. Louis area, and developing a consultancy practice to support that interest. To that end, I am putting myself out there by committing to presenting a technical deep dive into the implementation of Graphene at the St. Louis C++ meetup, then a week later participating in the Blockchain Breakfast Briefing, another St. Louis event, this on aimed at local business IT business leaders. Then a week after that I'll be attending Consensus 2017.
OK, I think that about covers it. Except for a video:
Hi, Phil. In my other company, SynaptiCAD, we used some software I believe your company did support and maintenance work for (TAO). Welcome to Steemit!
That's cool. Did you work with TAO? Do you remember when that was? Believe it or not, but TAO is still an active product. Not as active as a decade ago, but it just keeps on kicking.
Yes, it's still included in our product offerings today. It was quite a while back that we initially added it to our tools, so not sure when we first integrated it. We use it as a way for 3rd party tools to control our software, and we also use it for communication between our GUI and our SystemVerilog simulator.
I've still got the TAO books OCI put out on my book shelf (printed books on computer topics, now that is something that seems mostly obsolete now, but maybe that's just because my vision isn't what it used to be).
What is the version number on your TAO books? I've contributed a substantial chunk of the text in the books. These days the TAO books are available as $20 ebooks. Times change. ;-)
v1.2.a, copyright 2002. I think we had been working with TAO about a year at least before we got the books, but my memory is a bit blurred on that point now. I remember one of the guys here was excited to see an actual book on it :-)
Welcome to Steemit. Stephen
What a lovely post @philmesnier your tone had me smiling the whole time.
And: rocket science to medicine to finance - WOW! Also, I love beagles! Upvoted and followed for more. Welcome to Steemit!
Hi Daisyd, Thank you so much for your kind words!
Welcome to Steemit @philmesnier!
Hi Phil. I'm a coder too that's been delving into the world of blockchain esp graphene recently though I was only 2 in 1980 so clearly haven't been doing it as long. Perhaps we can work on some projects together in the future. At any rate, welcome to steemit.
Nice to meet you and I'm looking forward to your articles on blockchain and graphene. I'm a non technical person so remember me when you write, I don't know anything about the subject but I'm very curious person and it seems Steemit is full of people just like me!
Hey @philmesnier, welcome. Always great to have users with your coding expertise.
Welcome Phil. Steemit is a lot of fun as well as being cool technology. I'd like to get into coding some stuff around it when I get the time. I've been bashing computers since the 80s too
Welcome @philmesnier! Glad to have you in the community:)
Nice introducemyself good job Phil.