About
Twenty-five years of building for the web, and a few lessons learned
I am an independent developer. I design and build web applications for small businesses, and I keep them simple enough that those businesses can live with them for years.
- Years of experience
- 25
- Building web-based applications since the early days of the web.
- Point of contact
- 1
- You talk to the person who designs and writes the code.
- Lock-in
- 0
- Standard, portable technology you can take anywhere.
From the early web to the cloud#
I have been building web-based applications for 25 years. In that time I have watched the industry go from hand-written server pages, through waves of frameworks that each promised to change everything, to today’s serverless cloud and AI-assisted development.
The biggest lesson from all of that is a simple one: the software that lasts is the software that stays simple. Systems built on the fashionable architecture of the moment tend to become expensive to run and hard to change. Systems built on a small set of proven, well-understood tools keep working, and someone new can pick them up and carry on.
Who I work with#
I work with small and growing businesses: owners and teams who need software shaped around how they work, but who do not have an IT department to babysit it. That shapes every decision I make:
- Maintenance has to be manageable. Managed hosting, clear documentation and straightforward code mean routine upkeep does not need a developer on call.
- IT costs have to stay predictable. I design for low running costs from the start and set up budget alerts, so the monthly bill holds no surprises.
- Nothing should be locked in. You can move your app to another host or hand it to another developer without starting over.
The tools I trust#
- Go for the backend: fast, secure, frugal with resources, and easy to read years later.
- Angular and Vue for the front end, chosen per project.
- PostgreSQL or MongoDB for data, matched to its shape.
- Google Cloud, mainly App Engine and Cloud Run, for hosting without servers to manage.
- Google Workspace integration, so the app works with the Gmail, Calendar, Sheets and Drive your team already uses.
Marketing is part of the job#
A small business cannot afford software that does not pull its weight. Every site and app I build is search-friendly, fast and measurable, and it captures leads with enough context to follow up on. Software that helps you win customers pays for itself.
An early adopter of AI#
I started using AI in my development work early and have built my own design and development workflow around it. It lets me deliver tested, optimized solutions faster and at lower cost, while every line still gets the review of someone who has been doing this for a quarter of a century. Read how the workflow fits into a project.
Got a spreadsheet that has outgrown itself?
Or an idea for a customer portal, or an old app that needs rescuing? Tell me about it. The first conversation is about your business, not about technology.