Friday, November 7, 2008

About the author

The title sounds pompous, it is exactly what this post is about. One of the few posts where I will write about me, myself and I.

My name is Vincent Hubert, I am a software developer living in Montreal, Canada.
I currently have a Senior Developer position within a small technology company that ships highly interactive touchless systems (www.simbioz.com). My current professional interests are multiple and varied: WPF, .Net framework internals, new languages (F#), team dynamics, small business management and marketing, classic software engineering and agile methodologies. I am also very interested in the small form factor platforms, either the MID or UMPC. Outside of work and technology, I am very interested in aviation. I have my student pilot permit, yet no time slot available in my schedule to fly. It’s fall now, so I guess flying will have to wait until next year. I am a pretty good cook, and enjoy wine, beer (specially micro-breweries) and pretty much everything with alcohol in it.

My blog posts will cover mostly my professional interests, and some of my hobbies. I will try to post regularly on the following topics: Book reviews, blog roll review, tool reviews, development and architecture topics and a few Montreal related posts as well.

As a father of 3 young children, my week-ends are busy, and week nights, overwhelming. Yet, being a father is so wonderful. So I will also try to share a few stories about us, while keeping the focus on programming. Because every programmer is also a human being with its own family and aspiration.
One last note: My first language is French. Even though I am quite fluent in English, I might sometime make some English mistakes. Please pardon them.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Da Vincent's Code Lauches

That's it!

I've made the leap. I launched my blog. On November 4th 2008. Today.

The biggest challenge I will face will be maintaining a regular posting schedule. I will do my best to post at least once a week, and maybe twice.

The launch date, however, was not randomly chosen.

November 4th is a day that resonates with me both historically, personally and professionally.

Historically, today is U.S. election day. And surprisingly enough, one candidate was "endorsed" both by the Wall Street Journal and Hugo Chavez. Which, in itself, is quite a feat, no matter what the result of the election is.

Personally, today is the birthday of my wife.

And professionally, November 4th is a day that I came to name "diem horribilis". The kind of stuff that could show up in The Daily WTF. A few years ago, I was working for a small company that was selling QoS (Quality of Service) solutions to Voice-over-Ip (VoIP) providers. On that day, while the lead developer was on vacations, *ALL* our current customers called with *differrent* *critical* issues. All three of them. All different countries, all different isuues, all different versions of the software. I was expected home early, with a dinner to cook. Stressfull day. We made everyone happy, but this day is still known today as The Horrible day.

So the blog is launched.

Over the next few weeks, I will try to cover a little more of my profile, interest and current work.

If you are in the US, enjoy election day!