I finally completed my move back to Scotland, Edinburgh this time for a little change of scenery. Hence I apologise for the delayed publication of the next developer interview. Without further ado, here it comes:
Name: Erik Vold
Bio: I am currently a freelance developer, and I’ve been a web developer since ‘99 when I started working with JavaScript and ColdFusion at Triple 8 Networks in California. Afterwards I went to UBC for a Bachelor of Science in Statistics and Computer Science while doing a little freelance web development. After graduating I got started working at VKI Studios for awhile, in Vancouver, BC, about two years ago, started blogging, and started to work on some open source projects.
Specialities: Usability, Statistics, JavaScript, ColdFusion, SQL, R, Matlab, Java, Python, HTML, XML
URL: http://erikvold.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/voldsoftware
Question 1 (Colin Brown): Over the past 2 years mobile web browsing has become far more common and accessible, gadgets such as Apple’s iPhone has helped to raise the bar in this field. How important do you think developing websites for this medium is? Should mobile browsers, such as Mobile Safari be one of the web browsers we build websites to comply with?
Erik: To the last question, yes certainly. To the first question, I think it’s very important to develop for these new mobile devices in particular, because they are or will be more widely spread than computers ever were.
I think the best approach is to design agile interfaces and cover a high number of devices/people with a low number of interfaces. I also think it is very important to build an api (I include microformats here) for your data, and functionality, so that other people can build their own interfaces, or add to what you build (with UserScripts or UserStyles for example). Twitter is a great example of all of this.
Question 2 (Crawford Tait): Will increasingly-sophisticated javascript applications make flash redundant?
Erik: The overlap is growing that is for sure, but I think both will always be around. Flash seems to dominate for videos however. I think that JavaScript should be used wherever it can be in place of Flash as a general rule though.
Question 3 (Diego Campo): Have you thought of changing your career during the last year? If so, which one?
Erik: I wish I had more Math in my life sometimes, but other than that no way.
Question 4 (Colin McMillan): As a developer you need to keep on top of emerging technology. Given that there aren’t enough hours in the day, how do you decide what technologies or languages to pursue?
Erik: It’s a great problem to have isn’t it? I’m trying to take care of myself so that I live to be around 100 first of all ;] after that I prioritize, and the major factors in this are: interest to me, and usefulness to me.
Question 5 (David Poblador): How has open-source/free software changed the way you develop software?
Erik: Tough one.. I can say for certain that reading open source software has increased my abilities as a developer at least 2x.
Question 6 (Kilian Valkhof): What do you strive for most in your code?
Erik: Performance, clarity/maintainability, and density in that order. Ultimately usefulness, and usability would goes first though.
Question 7 (Catherine Bartlett): Tell me about the best developer you’ve ever known.
Erik: Kevin P. Murphy, the professor of a class I took at UBC, who taught bayesian machine learning, some basic ai stuff, which is a field I will love to watch grow.
Professor Murphy was really good at condensing material, cutting the fat, and making it memorable. Also, he was working on a textbook which became the main text for the class, and that was a really good textbook, but I only have an old draft now, and I don’t see the book on amazon yet..
Murphy worked on the Bayes Net Toolbox for Matlab, and some other Matlab software, and his class is where I started using Matlab which is a fantastic program.
Question 8 (Erik Vold): What are some of the new technology trends that you think we will see in this century?
Erik: Augmented reality, many more types of displays, increased usage of projection screens, focused audio devices, and far more ai.
Question 9 (the contributer would like to remain anonymous): How much of your work time do you spend analysing defect reports so that future instances of the same defects may be mitigated, or altogether removed from future builds?
Erik: Not much currently, I haven’t built anything that big as of yet though. At my previous job I was doing a fair bit of that, it mostly wasn’t my code however. To deal with this though we used SVN, but I would recommend Git now, and bug tracking software, which are both vital when working with a team.
Question 10 (Alan Graham): We are bombarded every day with new approaches, new libraries (Prototype.js vs jQuery, Java vs .NET, PHP vs everything), new free services (Google Analytics vs ???). What criteria do you use to quickly decide what to use?
Erik: I usually make sure that I take a close look, and am making a somewhat educated choice, and always hold on to doubt; as much depends not just on what a product can do now, but how it will grow in the future.
Question 11 (Richard Kelly – fellow online marketing dude): How much of a pain do you find developing and re-developing code for SEO?
Erik: I try to avoid re-developing code, with a long pole.
Question 12 (Felicitas Betzl): Having worked in a variety of agencies I’ve seen major collisions between account/project managers and developers for a variety of reasons. Can you think of 5 tips you can give account and project managers, which you think would make developers lives easier?
Erik: This is a tough one.. the project managers I have had were mostly great. Just remember to keep developers in the loop, Basecamp is a great solution for this.
Question 13 (just for fun): What is your favourite cartoon character?
Erik: Towelie!
Erik, thanks a lot for participating in the interview and all your interesting input!
