When I was about 12 years old every student in my class got to spend some time with a local business. I got to be with the local newspaper, whereupon I managed to break their camera. I spent the rest of my week, in small cupboard underneath the stairs, with the newspaper’s web developer (rocking an iMac G3).
I remember being so impressed that a few lines of text could display images, animations, link stuff together and all this cool stuff! It was all very exciting. Somehow my mum managed to print out (on paper!) a whole bunch of HTML tags. HTML lead me to CSS and JS. Not before long this lead to more traditional programming languages like PHP, Python and Java. The ball was rolling and, hasn’t stopped yet. I took my computer science bachelor at Aberystwyth University and since then worked as a professional software developer in Norway.
So far in my career I have been a part of a failed startup, made automated test tools, crafted solutions for the Norwegian healthcare industry, created core banking systems and more. Throughout my years I have fostered great appreciation and respect for my craft.
I aim to craft code which is maintainable, adaptable and pleasant to read. That the code works is the bare minimum which can be required, it must also display quality. I believe this can only be achieved by following what the industry considers best practices while constantly evaluating what aids quality and what doesn’t.
Software architecture is difficult. Solutions which do not consider architecture quickly become difficult to change and adapt. Such solutions has a tendency to move into the realm of legacy. Bad architecture slows down innovation and can, in time, lead to a huge amounts of technical debt. I spend a lot of my time thinking about how we craft solutions and how we it can be done in a sustainable way.
I value automated testing, almost to a fault. My goal is to create working and correct software and the only way to truly do that is to embrace test automation. I have been on projects without any sort of testing and I have developed internal testing tools I truly see the benefits test automation can bring to software.
