a Short History

Bryan's first experience with programming was in second grade. Dad had just bought their first computer, and Bryan spend months poring over the GW Basic syntax manual, testing commands, breaking things, and wondering what a "Syntax" was.

Through middle and high schools, Bryan taught himself Turbo Pascal, game programming, Assembly Language, C, and ultimately HTML.

Since then, he has freelanced for a number of clients in the Philadelphia area, including The Wharton School, Abacus Studios, Sevens and Sixes, and I-SITE. He then spent two years at TrueAction, Inc., building the UI for demanding eCommerce clients like Toys R Us. At the moment he is employed with RSI Content Solutions, creating the UI for the latest version of their RSuite CMS product – but is always looking for opportunities to innovate.

a tally of sKIlls

Obviously, HTML is just a small piece of WebDev. Start with a solid structure that is modular and repeatable, and your site's architecture is flexible enough for any client's needs.

Using that foundational HTML along with functional requirements and IADs, a backend can be built, using PHP, JSP, .Net, Node.JS, or if your server technology is something different, Bryan picks up new languages and ways of thinking quickly, leveraging his exsiting knowledge of MVC architechture and OOP principles to ensure rock solid stability and optimal performance.

At this point, there may already some skeletal CSS going on - possibly abstracted using Stylus, Less or grid systems - just to get a feel for interaction, but once the comps come in from the designers, the site will quickly start looking like it's intended – even in early browsers. One thing that Bryan excels at is leveraging technology - such as the HTML5 shim, Modernizr and CSS3PIE - to ensure that deprecated technology doesn't prevent your message from impacting a user.

While the stylesheets are being finalized, scripts are being written to define the site's behavior. Citing concerns with site performance and its correlation with conversion, Bryan has made it his mission, during his years in freelance, to eliminate Flash wherever it makes sense. With current techniques, Flash isn't needed for fonts, rotation, vector art, or animation. It's still required for video, but that is soon to come to an end as well.

Leveraging browser technologies like VML, HTML5 and Canvas, Bryan can create "flash" on your site without a lick of Flash. In fact, by taking advantage of the browser - using libraries like Mootools, jQuery and Prototype - he can improve on the UI experience of Flash, enabling full-on applications to be created using a client-side MVC engines such as Ember or Knockout, or even working within a legacy system.

a set Of goalS

Bryan's ambitions are relatively simple. He would like to be able to architect innovative software from the ground up. While he's had this opportunity from time to time, not every project is new - and maintenance can be as challenging as development.

Past that, he would like to have a relationship with a company with clear goals, excellent management, and a developement team that is open to new ideas and technologies.