Shawn Anderson

I’ve always loved solving problems and playing with technology. Software seemed like the logical career choice. After completing my internship with Atomic Object, I graduated from Grand Valley State University with a BS in Computer Science. I joined on as an official atom in 2004. I learned the magical ways of Extreme Programming and Test Driven Development from my time at AO working on a variety of projects and technologies. I worked with java desktop applicatications for clients such as Burke Porter and X-rite. I also found myself working with Python, C#, and Perl on various projects. Then it happened, someone at AO discovered the gem (pardon the pun) that was Ruby.

Ruby spread like a wildfire at AO. It accented and highlighted many of the properties that we hold to be crucial: ease of use, readablity of code, and testability. I now use Ruby on all my hobby programming including game development.

In my attempts to “conquer the world” I found myself working in California for Symantec. After a season of working in C++ and Ruby on the 2007 Norton product lines, I left Symantec to work for Edmunds.com. Working for a large scale website opened my eyes to the world of scale. Edmunds serves millions of unique visitors per month. Learning how they used their Java/Oracle stack to service this level of traffic was an enlightening experience.

Extra Curriculars:

• Ruby 101 presentation at Southern California Linux Exposition (Scale)

Open Source Projects:

• Gamebox: framework for writing 2D games in Ruby
• Snelps: RTS game written in Ruby
• Free-Radicals: inert atoms wrapped up in a 2D game.
• I also help in the Rubygame community.