scala.bythbay.io: James Townley Interview
Recording: scala.bythbay.io: James Townley Interview
my name is James Townley I am a software developer at yaa works so I'm responsible for everyday software development as well as some the architectural designs sure so my trip to Scala was a little different than most I started out in the computer industry doing customer service eventually grew into a role where I was directing a number of product managers and working with them on a daily basis and the company I was working for at the time did a bit of a shift and I saw this sort of really interesting opportunity arise for me to start actually developing software which was always something I wanted to do and it was something I've enjoyed doing sort of as a kid when I was back in high school so I took that opportunity and I got very lucky and I got to work with some really senior technical people and the language that they had just picked up and we're using for all of our new stuff with Scala this is back in 2008 so at that point I started learning my first language in anger which was skele so my first language is Scala and learning it has been really fun I really enjoyed it I have taken a few detours like I did Python for a couple of years but always coming back to Scala feels like coming home it's a very comfortable friendly place for me to be I'm in a very fortunate position where I got to choose the stack I'm working with so I'm basically working in my ideal stack which is using light bend technologies it's important work backend stuff on a day to day basis and I also like working a lot with the DevOps side of things as well so I've incorporated a few tools such as Griffin and Prometheus as well so I'm working in the place I want to be right now I've got the stack that I'm very familiar with comfortable with and is still very new and and cutting-edge and gives me the tools I need to accomplish pretty much every job I need to do I'm always on the lookout for sort of simple rules and simplicity so there is a I'm terrible at remembering names but there was a couple of great talks I've gone to so far on simplicity and one on some simple numbers as well I was looking forward to seeing them and really enjoyed them as well I wish I could remember the names right now but my memory is a sieve for things like that