About

Since I was a college student in the late 1990s, I've been building things on the web. Designing above the fold, building RIAs in Adobe Flex, writing my own RSS feed aggregator, FTP'ing database files to a dedicated hosting company server? Been there, done that. I've designed sites for the Palm Pilot VII, my friends.

Today, I develop and design web apps, help run a web consultancy, and speak and write on topics related to software and business. Occasionally, I tweet updates via @developerscode.

In 2006, I co-founded We Are Mammoth, a Chicago-based web consultancy. Our mission is to design and build software for organizations to improve and transform our world. We are a distributed team, with employees in over a dozen cities across the United States.

I am also the creator of DoneDone, a web-based issue tracker built for simplicity. DoneDone was released in 2009 and has helped thousands of companies large and small manage over two million issues since launch.

I'm the author of two books.

• The Developer's Code, a commentary on various topics in software, was released in 2012. It is also available in Russian, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and as an audio book. I released the original version of the book as a one-page web site.
• Flash Application Design Solutions, a book on usability engineering with Macromedia Flash, was published in 2006. I wrote this book along with Craig Bryant, prior to our founding of We Are Mammoth.

Why I write essays

The common thread throughout my entire career has been my love of writing. Why? No exercise makes me seriously consider my own opinions alongside the opinions of others more than writing. Good writing is timeless and takes time. I think the world desparately needs more of it.

Writing helps me find compassion and empathy. It helps me discover patterns. It lets me distill lots of input into a coherent, singular output (This is why at least half of my time writing is spent editing). I don't write to convince people, I write simply to allow others to see something in a new way. To me, writing is the purest form of considered thought.

Why I made this website

This is a site of blog posts and essays from various sources. I wanted a central place solely focused on the writing I put out into the world. This is that place!

Here's the latest essay I've published. Or, start with a random essay. At the bottom of each essay, you can find other essays in the same category, or choose a different category. You can also look at every essay on my site.