Let's just say that with tongue in cheek, OK? I'm not suggesting there are lots of people around asking lots of questions about this website. It's really only here for people who want to get to know me. (Or to assuage them of the desire.)
1: What's a FAQ?
2: What's this faq for?
3: What's this website for?
4: What's with this: Robert?
5: What's with: J R?
6: Where do I live?
7: What do I do for fun?
8: What is my quest?
9: What do I 'do'?
10: Where do I work?
11: What tools do I use?
12: What software do I write?
13: Why no resume?
FAQ is short for Frequently Asked Questions. As far as I know it was popularized through the internet. It's a useful way of organizing a lot of information about a subject so that it's easily accessible, especially for beginners. Find the FAQ for a topic, and you are way ahead. The organization is especially appropriate for users who don't have the inclination or ability to search or 'drill-down to reach the information they want.
This faq is mostly to show off the software used to create it. And it will tell you a little about me, if you're interested.
The primary purpose of this website is to let people find out a little more about me. Second, it's a place to put stuff that I want to say. Third, it's a place to show off some technology I'm working on, and to pontificate about web technology. It's not a resume, nor is it intended to demo my web work.
I go by "John Robert". If you say "John" at me, I'm likely to think you're talking about someone else. Folks as want to be on my good side call me John Robert.
Folks as are on my good side often call me J. R.
Until I figure out a better name for a given program, I usually just put J. R. in front of the subject: JRThreads, JRFAQ....
Menlo Park, California. Where life is very easy... once (if) you have a place to live. It's really very nice when the ground stays in one place.
Travel, read, be near water, write, dance (Texas Two-Step), borrow small children, eat in great resteraunts, learn foreign languages. Other stuff, as well. Roller blade, tan, rock-climb: NOT.
...Just a joke from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Talking about my quest is a little personal for a website don'tcha-say-don'tcha think.
I do contract web publishing work.
Mostly, but not always, for companies between San Francisco and San Jose. I have a strong preference for avoiding rush hour traffic, and commuting in general. Got a job in M.P.? Drop me a line!
EMACS is the text editor of choice. Use NT at home. Usually UNIX at client locations. Often Macs. Mostly I use pre-processors to manipulate whole websites, rather than clicking repeatedly to perform the same action on many files. "Look Ma, no hands." That's my motto. I write a lot of my own tools in Perl, though if I can just find a little time, I'll start using Java. (The usefulness of regular expressions is over-emphasized, in my opinion.)
Some examples: Replace large, named blocks of text in many files. Insert the target document's title as mouseover/mouseout attributes for all documents in a directory. Automatically format the links of a faq. Generate multiple versions of a website automatically.
This website is for peers, not for recruiters or employers. Contact me about jobs, and we'll go from there.
A para tag.