W.O.X. - WORLD OF XOOPS #20 (May 2009)

Where are you from, and where do you live now?

I’m from a little place at the very top of England called Scotland. Many people seem to think that the British Isles is England only, but that is not true. I currently live at the Bonnie bank of Dundee.

How long have you been programming?

Since the days of the Spectrum, back in the days when you would load your program, sit and wait for 30 minutes to find out that there was a loading error right at the end. That was fun. So, you could say on and off from the 80’s.

What is your expertise?

Retail. I have spent my last 20 years in various aspects of the retail trade.

What got you to XOOPS?

I was working for a company that decided to update their website. I was given the task of looking for alternatives to static html. I think I tried just about every CMS that there was at the time and that is when I discovered Xoops. Well Xoops v1 at the time. It was still very much along the lines of the Nuke version, but even then it had something that just made it stand out from the others.

What do you like the most about XOOPS?

When I first stated using Xoops, I had no real idea of the issues using a CMS at all, and the community were wonderful with helping no matter what issue or problem I had or with answering my questions, no matter how silly they seemed. So I would have to say the community to start off with.

I have developed for so many different CMS’s. Mambo, Joomla, Drupal and Xaraya and the list can go on. Yet, I have to say that Xoops, even with its older code, is far the easier to work with and develop on.

In what area of XOOPS do you contribute and why?

I’m not sure where I should start with this. I like to think I try to contribute to as much of Xoops as I can right now, from Support within the forums, to working on the core. Right now, I am trying to get WF-Projects back up and running again, and have all the WF-Project modules moved over to work with 2.3 branch and PHP5. So this will require some real change. I also want to refactor many of the modules like WF-Links and WF-Downloads to be lighter, more compact and use more of Xoops technologies and PHP5 throughout.

I am helping on the ‘Move to Blue’ initiative with the Xoops Module development Team. What this means is, we are driving to make sure that no matter which module you use, is will work with Xoops 2.3 and PHP5. We are still in the early stages of this and if you would like to help, you know where to contact me

As part of the Move to blue, we are also working on the new Module repository. This is still in the early stage of planning, and we are looking into many different technologies we could use to make adding modules to the repository as easy as possible and to making it extremely user friendly, but at the same time content rich for everyone.

At the moment I am working on the 2.3.4 branch of Xoops.

What you you major achievement in programming that you're most proud of?

I would like to say that within the Xoops environment, it would have to be WF-Sections. I basically broke into using PHP with this module. Though I have to say that this is not what I consider my most proud achievement in programming.

I basically have two that I hold with fond memories and when I look back I sometimes wonder how I managed to do them lol

1. I wrote a complete OS for a computer called the SAM Coupe (many of you may not have heard of it). The programming language was Basic and very easy to use. I didn’t like the interface that came with the original OS, so I wrote my own and complete with new disk format for it.

2. Me and my Brother wrote a football managerial game many years ago. The game was complete with real football player stats, player negotiations and graphic animations for in game. That was a lot of fun for us to write.

What are your hobbies, when you're not coding?

Music: I have been a musician for as long as I can remember. Played guitar in numerous bands, also did a lot of session work and taught budding guitarists for a good few years. Over the last few years I have been writing and producing more with Computer related tools and instruments.

Gaming: I find that this helps me relax a lot.

You favorite dish and drink?

Lol, ok, I have to admit, I am not a food person. Very picky about what I eat, and I am not one of those people who get excited about eating. Though I must admin, I am very partial about Indian food, when I am in the mood for it.

Drink, Tea. I have one of those thermal cups and it sits there all the time when I am coding full of tea. My whole family are tea drinkers. When we visit other members of our family, the first thing that goes on is the kettle.

What about movies and music?

Anything with Tom Hanks in it will do me. The man is a fantastic actor and puts everything into any film that he stars in. and, I have to say Braveheart, with being Scottish, even though the film was nothing like what happened in real life. I like the fact that it changed a lot of politics here in the UK.

I listen to a lot of music, especially when I am programming. If I am doing something that I need to concentrate on, I normally listen to ambient or dance, otherwise I will mainly listen to hard rock. At the moment Nickleback – Dark horse is blasting out.

If you would have a chance for a 30 seconds commercial with a message to the world, what would you say?

Your life on this planet is shorter than you think. Rather than spending all your time trying to kill each for just having different points of views, politics and religion. Why not get in a pizza, six pack and kill each other on Halo?

If you could choose a place and time to live, what would it be and why?

I honestly think I was born too early. I really would have liked to have been born around the time of space exploration, warp drive and all that. Visit new worlds, meet new races, civilizations (Without the need to kill them first) and exchange history, culture, technology and new ways of life and living.

Who is the person that you would like to meet and why? 

I think that of all the musicians that influenced me more anyone else with my guitar work, I would have to say Gary Moore did. So yes, from that point of view I would like to meet him, discuss guitar styles and techniques and maybe have a jam with him.