The Study

Web-home of Chris Sandow

home |  about

Programming

Introduction

Delphi

Java

Projects

Graphics

Introduction

POV-Ray

Terragen

Music

Introduction

Work in Progress

Oddments

Library

Miscellaneous

Curriculum Vitae

Christopher John Sandow AMIAP

Bournemouth, Dorset, England

Experienced software developer, with over fifteen years of professional programming experience, mainly in database development, including ten years of Delphi, and several years of Clipper and dBase.

Contents

Personal Details

Date & Place of Birth: 26th July, 1958; Doncaster, Yorkshire

Marital Status: Married, with two children.

Hobbies & Interests:

--Back to contents

Current Employment

Iris Enterprise

from March 2005

Software development company, specialising in small/medium business accounting software.

Programmer/Analyst

--Back to contents

Software Knowledge

Operating Systems & Networks:

Office Software:

Software Development Packages:

The items in bold are those of which I feel I have the most knowledge and experience.

I also have limited (non-commercial) experience with Visual C++, Java, C# and with MS Visual Studio .NET and the .NET Framework.

Note The Workshop page of this web-site gives at least some idea and examples of the standard of my programming work.

--Back to contents

Previous Employment

Hebron UK Ltd.
August 1995 - March 2005

Software development company, specialising in School Administration and Accounting for schools and small businesses.

Programmer/Analyst

Initially responsible for completing the development of Conference Organising System for Windows 3.11, using CA-Visual Objects, v.1.00b.

Subsequent work using Borland Delphi:

Additional work using other development systems:

--Back to contents

June, 1989 - July, 1995 

OMI Logistics Ltd., Portland House,
22-24 Portland Square, Bristol BS2 8RZ
Systems Analyst, Computer Programmer, Network Supervisor and general IT Support.

Duties included:

All applications were developed using CA Clipper 5.2 and designed for use on a 25-user local area network running Novell Netware.

October, 1986 - June, 1989 

Lontec Ltd. (later OMI Logistics), Portland House,
22-24 Portland Square, Bristol, BS2 8RZ
Documentation Assistant; clerical duties.

February, 1985 - October, 1986 

Bristol Radiotherapy Centre, Horfield Road, Bristol
Senior Lodge Porter; management of porters; some clerical duties.

August, 1977 - February, 1985

Bristol Radiotherapy Centre, Horfield Road, Bristol
Lodge Porter; general portering duties.

Back to contents

Education

Wellsway Comprehensive School, Keynsham

	
September, 1969 - July, 1977

Qualifications

GCE 'O'Levels

GCE 'A' Levels

Subject

Grade

Subject

Grade

English Language

A

Music

C

Mathematics

B

    

Technical Drawing

B

    

Physics

C

    

Music

C

    

Geography

E

    

Chemistry

E

    
Back to contents

About myself

Although I have no formal computing qualifications, I have been interested in computers for many years, and from my first exposure to them I was attracted to the programming side. I taught myself programming, initially in BASIC, but later learning FORTH and C, although my knowledge of FORTH has long since faded!

In 1988, the company that I was then working for decided that they wanted to move an existing physical card-bank system onto computer, and as I was already known to have computer experience and programming knowledge, I was asked if I would take on the task. I accepted, and developed a simple relational database in dBase III Plus. This proved entirely successful, so it was then decided to develop a system to handle the main work of the office (which was involved in contract work for the MOD, undertaking the investigation and cataloguing of spare parts for naval vessels). The rest of my time at this office was taken with developing and then constantly extending this system, which was written in Clipper 5.2. Again I taught myself the language, using the reference manuals that came with it, along with additional books.

In 1994/1995 it was decided to look into the idea of redeveloping the system for Windows. We investigated both Visual Basic and CA-Visual Objects, and would probably have gone ahead with Visual Basic. However, thanks to the break-up of Soviet Union and the end of the 'Cold War', work from the MOD was becoming seriously curtailed, and in 1995 the owners of the company decided to all but close the Bristol office, leaving only a skeleton staff. I was one of the casualties of this decision. The office is still open, and is still using the system that I wrote - they no longer have any IT staff, so the system has had to stand up for itself for the last 3 years, which it appears to have done successfully.

Since July 1995 I have been working as Senior Programmer/Analyst for a small software house which primarily develops accounting and administration software for independent schools and small businesses. When I joined the company they were beginning to move towards Windows development, and as a trial were developing a Conference Organising system, using CA-Visual Objects. My first task with the company was to take over and finish the development of this system.

Subsequently I assisted in some of the DOS programming that was still required (for the company's many existing customers), but moved more and more towards developing Windows versions of the products. At my recommendation the company changed from using CA-Visual Objects to using Borland Delphi, and I developed most of the 'core library' of components and general-purpose routines that would be used throughout all the Windows applications. In my spare time I developed a Delphi version of the Conference Organising system, initially as a way of learning Delphi, and to confirm for myself that Delphi would prove a more stable and efficient development system than Visual Objects - in the end, the Visual Objects version of the Conference Organising system was abandoned, and my rewritten version was taken up instead.

The first major program to be converted from DOS to Windows was the School Administrator, for which I was one of a small team of two programmers and one project leader (the project leader being the programmer who had carried out most of the development of the original DOS version). This application was completed and launched successfully by October 1997, although by this time the project leader had left the company and I had taken over this role, as well as continuing with the majority of the programming.

Since then I have been responsible for the further development of the School Administrator, and have provided programming support and technical assistance for the development of the Accounts package, work on which began shortly before the first release of the Administrator. I have also continued with development of the core library, adding or assisting with the extensions required by the Accounts package and by the additions to the School Administrator.

In addition, I have provided support for an MS Access database system used by one of our clients. They are a marine services company, purchasing and supplying spare parts, and the database tracks all their orders, quotes, invoices, and so on. This was a large system, and originally suffered serious speed problems, which we have now addressed and considerably improved.

In March, 2001, I took over as Software Development Manager. My work is still about 75% programming, but I am now responsible for overseeing the programming department, and leading the development of the 'next generation' of our applications.

I hope this gives some idea of my experience and my background as a programmer. I have always tried to keep abreast of new developments in programming (I am currently teaching myself Java), and would be more than happy to consider jobs which included cross-training, especially to Java or Visual C++, both of which I have some limited knowledge of.

Back to contents

 

For enquiries about this web-site, please contact Chris Sandow

Last updated 11 June, 2006