I’m a software developer working in Minnesota (Twin Cities), passionate about software development.

My focus is on developing desktop applications on Windows, as well as working on server-side components (web services and databases).  I’ve also dabbled in creating web and mobile apps. My main passions lie at either end of the stack–creating great user experiences and designing data models and relational databases.

I’ve been a full-time software developer for 30 years and have worked with many different languages and technologies, including old chestnuts like: ANSI C, VB.NET, VB6, C++, Ada, FORTRAN, Windows Installer, Win Forms, MFC, STL, ActiveX, COM Servers, X Windows, and OSF/Motif. I’ve written production code in Ada, FORTRAN, C, C++, Pascal, Visual Basic, and C#. I started my career in the mid 1980s, writing Ada and C on the VAX/VMS platform, transitioning to Microsoft Windows in the early 1990s.

The technologies that I currently work with most frequently include C#, XAML (WPF), SQL Server, and Entity Framework. I’ve also begun to spend more time with HTML, JavaScript and CSS.

I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science (University of Minnesota, 1987) and a Master of Science degree in Software Design and Development (University of St. Thomas, 1994). Along the way, I’ve gotten a couple of Microsoft certifications (VB.NET and C#).

The idea behind my 2,000 Things projects is to learn a technology in more depth by writing a number of short posts on the technology, each of which is limited to 150 words (or so) and demonstrates some small aspect of the technology. I’m also a firm believer in building something that works as the best way to learn a technology. My posts therefore typically include working code fragments from small sample apps.

I’ve created two blogs for the 2,000 Things series, listed below. The C# blog is now on hiatus and I’m posting in the WPF blog on a fairly limited basis.

• 2,000 Things You Should Know About C# (1,200+ posts)
• 2,000 Things You Should Know About WPF (1,200+ posts)

As of early 2019, I’m adding a third member to the 2,000 Things family: 2,000 Things You Should Know About HTML. This blog will follow the pattern of the other two, containing many tiny posts, each of which explains one small topic. I may not create a post every single day, like I originally did with the other two blogs, but will try to post regularly.

It’s hard to decide on exact boundaries for the content in these blogs. The 2,000 Things You Should Know About HTML blog will focus solely on HTML. I will not be covering anything related to CSS and JavaScript, though these technologies are a critical part of any real world web development project. If I have the time and energy for it, I may later consider creating parallel blogs for those technologies.

Other places that you can find me:

• Sean’s Stuff – a general purpose software dev blog that I post to occasionally.
• Twitter – me on Twitter
• Grey Beard Sailing (YouTube) – me sailing on Lake Superior. More videos coming eventually.
• Grey Beard Sailing (Blog) – future home of witty and insightful posts about sailing
• Goodreads – what I’m reading (and have read)
• The Lucy Show – interviewing my daughter (podcast)
• The Daniel Show – audio podcast with my son
• Seans.com – my personal web site, a bit old and neglected.
• The Shed – a cool shed that I built. A number of people have built versions of this shed now, across the country, based on my original plans.

Last update: 25 Feb 2019