Welcome to my blog…

My name is Mark Timmings, I’m a software developer and a one time wannabe bassist.

I’ve resisted creating a blog in the past as I didn’t really feel I had much interesting to say. However of recent years I’ve realised how much I’ve learned and ultimately forgotten (due to lack of use) over the years and I’ve decided the best way to remember all this stuff is by recording some of the interesting stuff or the sort of thing I end up learning from scratch more than once.

I’ve been employed as a software developer since 1988, although I’d been programming computers for fun for some years before that. Having written software for the BBC model B and a little later the Sinclair Spectrum. I started writing business application in Basic/Turbo Basic then moving very quickly into C and as soon as C++ came on the scene I jumped into C++ development with Borland’s Turbo C++. I’ve developed in assembler, Pascal (Delphi as well), PHP, Java and more. My primary development langauage since 2002 has been C#.

Outside programming, I started out aiming to become a rock musician, playing bass guitar and played with a few bands in my youth, obviously I failed in that career choice. I still play bass, but mainly for myself nowadays and whilst I listen to heavy rock/metal most I’ve become more of an experimental jazz funk bassist (which really just means I play whatever I like).

More recently I had a house built, something we’ve been saving for many many years towards. We’ve got loads of green technologies installed and we’re trying to become more self-sufficient. Whilst the ultimate aim of being truly off-grid is unlikely, the aim is to try to make the property as cheap to run as possible and maybe even pay for itself.

Github: https://github.com/putridparrot
Connect via Twitter: @putridparrot