Member profile
Q. What is your favourite quote?
A. I find this quote very inspiring … “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.
Teddy Roosevelt, speaking at the Sorbonne in 1910.
Q. Desert island object?
A. My raffia sun hat – cool for the hottest days and tough enough for rough conditions.
Q. What motivated you to take up the career that you have pursued?
A. IT has a wonderful combination of innovation and user interaction on a continuously evolving technology base. The result is constant change and interesting challenges.”
Q. What do you most enjoy about being an engineer and inventor?
A. I love the buzz in the room when a small team, working together, has just solved a really tricky problem with a brilliant, elegant, innovative solution.
Q. What do you find most challenging in your current role?
A. Explaining to a non-engineer why the issue they want fixed with a ‘quick win’ will only truly be resolved by more fundamental change.
Q. What would you say to a young person thinking about a career in engineering, design and technology?
A. Whatever you build, always focus on the people that will buy and use what you create. Do not get too engrossed in the actual technology for its own sake. Keep
learning about the latest developments and do not be afraid to try new approaches and challenges.
Q. Professionally, who do you admire most and why?
A. Grady Booch for his work on software design and architecture. He is one of the founding fathers of our unified modelling language (UML) that has become the IT industry’s common design specification standard.
Q. What has been your favourite invention?
A. The Internet – because it gives us the means to research and collaborate with people all over the world.
Q. What are you most proud of doing during your career?
A. I have just finished writing a book of design patterns for distributed systems that should go on sale later this year. This has drawn on my experience of the last 25 years, working on different aspects of distributed system middleware.
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