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bgneal@3
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1 About
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2 =====
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3
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4 Hello! My name is Brian Neal. By day I am a real-time, embedded C++ programmer. By night and
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5 on the weekends I like to hack on interesting projects in Python_. Right now I am mainly
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6 focused on web development.
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7
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8 My interests in web development began several years ago when I started a community-based
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9 website for instrumental surf music fans. I simply downloaded a popular PHP CMS system, set
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10 it up, and opened shop. Very quickly bugs appeared. "No problem", I thought, "I'm a programmer,
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11 I can fix this." Opening up that code in a text editor was quite shocking and disappointing.
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12 It was obvious I had chosen a framework built by amatuers with no concern for security, efficiency,
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13 standards, or any kind of software engineering discipline. I spent about 2 years working on the
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14 code with a group of dedicated enthusiasts, but eventually grew tired of the sprawling, cut & paste
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15 spaghetti code. It was simply too broken and too tedious to make fundamental changes.
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16
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17 I started looking around for other alternatives and discoved Django_. I had some limited experience
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18 with Python from work, and Django looked incredibly useful. Django allowed me to concentrate more
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19 on my application and less on the "grunt work." Once I had created a small website for a friend's
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20 band, I knew I was hooked. I then sent out on a nearly 2 year mission to rewrite my growing website
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21 with Django and Python. The rewrite finally went live about 2 weeks before I attended my first
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22 PyCon_ in 2011.
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23
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24 This blog will be mainly about my experiences in web development and Python. C++ and my day job may
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25 sneak into the blog from time to time as well. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to
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26 contact me via any of the links in the sidebar or by email (*bgneal at gmail dot com*).
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27
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28 Disclaimer
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29 ----------
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30
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31 I hope this is obvious, but please bear with me. This blog reflects my own personal opinions and
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32 not those of any past, present, or future employers. I hope the information found herein is useful
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33 to others, but I may in fact be on crack and I make no warranties of any nature. This blog is a
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34 snapshot of my thoughts in time. I may change my mind as I learn more and gain further
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35 experience.
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36
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37 Some blog posts may allow comments. Please note that I reserve the right to remove comments for any
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38 reason at any time.
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39
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40 Colophon
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41 --------
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42
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43 This blog was created with Pelican_, Python_, reStructuredText_, Mercurial_,
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44 Vim_, Fabric_, and Bootstrap_.
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45
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46 .. _Python: http://python.org
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47 .. _Django: http://djangoproject.com
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48 .. _PyCon: http://us.pycon.org
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49 .. _Pelican: http://getpelican.com/
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50 .. _Bootstrap: http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/
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51 .. _reStructuredText: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
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52 .. _Mercurial: http://mercurial.selenic.com/
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53 .. _Fabric: http://fabfile.org
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54 .. _Vim: http://www.vim.org
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