Alan Williamson

  • Improved AmazonS3 uploads with OpenBD

    I have added an end of year feature bonus to OpenBD, available in the nightly build edition.   This improves the uploading capabilities to Amazon S3 from your CFML apps. With this improvement, the AmazonS3Write() function brings the following features: Retry capability, complete with configurable time to wait between retries Automatic local file delete on Read Post ⇢

  • JavaScript is our new Visual Basic

    JavaScript is sweeping the development community and is popping up everywhere, having broken free from the confines of the browser.  We see it at the server side, embedded inside programs, powering mobile apps and we even see it popping up inside of games.  However, we are creating a huge headache for developers and companies in Read Post ⇢

  • JavaOne 2014 App – the anti-pattern to mobile development

    The JavaOne conference, held annually in San Francisco is a shining beacon of everything good and wonderful in the Java space.   What was once the main event, JavaOne is now a side show to the massively large OracleOpenWorld, which takes over all of the Moscone halls, streets and a number of hotels.  There was Read Post ⇢

  • Why, I, the anti-social-networker fell for Google+

    I hate Facebook.  I don’t care about your lives.  If I cared, I would be part of your life and I would talk to you, I would interact with you and I would get involved with you.  I could go on for why I hate Facebook and all the problems with privacy and how you Read Post ⇢

  • “From Earth to the Moon” teaches us a little software management

    The Apollo era of the space race, was one of the most exciting and energetic periods in the scientific community with many of the foundations of software engineering being pioneered that are still in use today. One of the best TV series to articulate the challenges that had to be overcome is the Tom Hanks Read Post ⇢

  • How to handle yourself at a student career fair

    When first starting out at university you don’t give too much thought on what job you will eventually land.  However as time moves on, there will be opportunities that you need to grab with both hands.   Career fairs, company campus visits, guest lectures are just some of the chances for you to get in Read Post ⇢

  • Who is looking at your code?

    We’re software developers and we take our art form seriously.  Our palette is the editor to which we lay down our beautifully crafted code.   How we name variables, how we shape methods and how we format code, leaves its own unique DNA sequence that can quickly identify the owner.   Even after running code through a Read Post ⇢

  • How’s your Software Insurance Policy?

    Ask any software developer a list of things they dislike doing the most and chances are testing and documentation will make the top 2. Testing is one of those necessary evils that every software developer must wrestle with.  Software developers have a unique confidence (read arrogance) that the code they write is error free and Read Post ⇢

  • “Scotch: The Whisky of Scotland in Fact and Story” by Robert Bruce Lockhart

    If you are mildly interested in the history of Scottish whisky then you can go no wrong with this book written by Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart. Lockhart, died 20 years ago, and was from a completely different era with a word play that you would expect from the upper-class snobbish of an old boy that Read Post ⇢

the leg-end that is, Alan Williamson.

For over 20 years, I’ve shared my thoughts whenever the muse strikes. It’s unpredictable, honest, unedited, and occasionally witty. I’m living the best years of my life, working harder than ever, and enjoying every second.