David P. Kendal

Summary

Computer programmer working mainly in web development, working with a full stack of modern web technologies with a focus on back-end technology; also interested in programming languages and security/cryptography. Writer of clear, concise English technical and editorial prose. Experienced in remote teams, working on developing prototypes and implementing features rapidly, and with quickly understanding the relevant aspects of large existing codebases.

Principal skills

• Python incl. Flask framework (5 years; proficient)
• Ruby incl. Rails & Sinatra frameworks (6 years; proficient though possibly a little out-of-practice)
• JavaScript (5 years; competent) incl. features ≥ES2015
• PHP (since c. 2002; competent but very out-of-practice)
• HTML/CSS (since c. 2001; proficient) incl. various template systems and metalanguages
• Scheme (4 years; competent)

• SQL database structure and administration (since c. 2002; competent), with MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite
• Caches/key–value stores: memcached & Redis (4 years; competent)

• Test-driven development
• Git source control (interactively and programmatically)
• Unix system administration (FreeBSD, Linux, Mac OS X)
• English native speaker, and writer of technical prose and essays
• German speaker (CEFR B2/C1; TestDaF 4)

Interest areas

In the future I’m interested in developing skills in:

• Internationalization and localization
• Programming languages: Haskell/Idris, Go, Rust, Erlang, Perl 6
• Dev-ops, especially container-based deployment
• More practical experience with assembly languages (for VMs and real hardware)

Education & work experience

Clitheroe Royal Grammar School (selective state/academy), Lancashire, UK (2005–11). Obtained 10 GCSE passes, 5 GCE AS-levels. Also achieved merit in the British Informatics Olympiad in 2011.

Independent student (2016–17). Obtained 3 GCE A-levels and an International Phonetic Association certificate in the phonetics of English.

European Voluntary Service (September–February 2017), Catania, Sicily. Engaged in a university library.

Self-educated as a programmer since the age of 10, beginning with HTML and CSS and progressing to PHP, Perl, Ruby, Python, etc.

Gained experience working in various team rôles at numerous hack-days while still in school (2010–12), as well as working on many self-directed projects since learning to program.

Worked regularly on freelance and contract jobs on existing codebases since then, including in positions with responsibility for feature and project planning (2012–16).

Selected software

• Green’s Dictionary of Slang Online (2014–): sole developer of a large web application in Python, processing large amounts of XML data into a database, rendering as HTML, providing advanced search features for academic research, etc. Launched as an independent publication in October 2016 after development pro bono.
• wsgiwatch (2016): development tool for Python web apps which need to regenerate static dependencies.
• Ikwi (2015): a personal wiki intended for note-taking, using Git and Markdown for storage and a rich text editor as its front end. Written in Python with the Werkzeug HTTP toolkit.
• Yoleaux (2012–16): a large Ruby IRC bot project. Makes use of custom web scrapers for many different services. Used in about 20 channels on the Freenode IRC network. Slowly being replaced by Saxo, which I have contributed to but do not maintain.

• Trilby (2012): Startup I co-founded, which made a webmail client with machine-learning auto-filtering features. Closed pre-launch due to co-founder issues.
• Plan/Reva (2011–2012), Lamedh (2014–): Experimental programming languages created to teach myself about programming language theory, compilers, and type systems. Mainly intellectual exercises and prototypes.
• Stripe capture-the-flag (2012): Among the first dozen to reach the final stage of a website security pen-testing challenge run by payment company Stripe in 2012.
• Follow Fan (2011): Crowdsourced interview platform for Ask Me Anything-style discussions with authors, musicians, and filmmakers. Won a runner-up prize at the Guardian SxSW hack 2011.

Selected writings

• Modern computing (2013)
• Block-chains and Bitcoin (2013)
• PageRank described in Python (2015)
• Implementing regular expressions in JavaScript (2017)

Selected other work and interests

• Personal interests in historical linguistics, lexicography, phonetics, and Germanic languages and dialects
• Mentor at hack-days for young programmers (2011–2014) and strong supporter of successful campaigns for computer science classes in UK secondary schooling (2010–2012)
• Contributor of dozens of antedatings and quotations for new words to the Oxford English Dictionary and Green’s Dictionary of Slang (starting 2013)