Socially, I'm very introverted. And if it matters to you: Straight/White/CIS/privileged/he/him. I support LBGTQ+, the destruction of discrimination, and all my peers and friends in their endeavors to improve their life, knowledge, and the space around them.

My career has brought me through a lot of enterprise spaces: Business Intelligence, Enterprise/Business Reporting, Process Improvement, Data Warehousing, Enterprise Architecture and System Integration, Software Design and Development. Previous to that, I've also done a lot of customer-facing work, call center work, troubleshooting/support, dispatching, courier/delivery, a little bit of construction -- quite a variety really!

I like a variety of video game genres, but mostly ones that are built around a really good story. Basically: RPGs, but other genres can deliver stories just as well. It's about how well the games mechanics are integrated with that story - which is a pretty tough balance to keep! Games are art (T(E) = Art) and maybe someday I'll delve into the game development industry. Right now, I've just got too many other things to figure out. :)

I believe many developers in general need to be less afraid or resistant to SQL, but I understand why that is too. ORMs and DAOs are very handy, and perfectly fine for use in the application. But, sit on the other end (inside the database) and spend some time there, using only SQL to try and comprehend and transform the data that's there. I've been able to figure out the logic used (and defects/bugs caused) by applications without ever having to look at the applications' source code. One record doesn't tell you much, but lots of records start to describe entire behaviors!

SQL and "data" in general require a different mode of thinking compared to your usual soup de jour (that is, procedural/sequential instructions in your application code). It certainly takes lot of time and effort to become proficient at it, but once it "clicks", you become a much better application developer.

I've written many, many processes in SQL. And not your dirty MySQL (5.x) kind of SQL, I mean with advanced features such as windowing and partitioning; introspectable deduplication (no group by), aggregation, and data cleansing procedures (heard you ML/AI folks like clean data), etc. My choice of backend is MSSQL (Microsoft SQL Server), but if licensing/affordability makes that a non-option then I fall back to Postgres. Neither are perfect by far - they have their own quirks and annoyances (MSSQL's error messages, the pgAdmin tool) - but they're also the easiest to get started with and have the most comprehensive feature sets available.

• I've written a few web apps for "internal customers" at enterprises to help with productivity. Mostly in PHP (which has since atrophied).
• I've also created many reporting dashboards and individual reports using various toolsets (custom Javascript/D3.js, Domo, Tableau, etc.).
• I've integrated with very complex vendor systems such as Salesforce (mostly for data ETLs).
• I try to find teaching opportunities everywhere. Sometimes even at the worst of times (sorry).
• I know quite a bit of Python, but I'd still rather write in TypeScript these days.
• I like the intrinsic things built into languages like Rust, Elm (though I wish Elm was much more backend oriented), and TypeScript.
  (strong typing is a very good thing)