About Me

Who are you and why would I care?

My name is Newman Scott Hunter, and I’m a web developer / game developer / Rubyist currently living in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. I work on various things, from drupal based corporate sites, and optimized php frameworks, to massively multiplayer gameservers designed for crossplatform play. I’m even writing a MMO game server based on Ruby, you should check it out on github. I consider myself somewhat of a generalist developer, but I’m fairly stuck in the web and networking sphere, and I kind of like it there.

I recently changed jobs/technologies/mentalities to take a position at Shopify as a Software Developer. For the last little while, I’ve wanted to make the shift into Ruby and work in a start up. Somehow, I managed to convince all the people at Shopify that are smarter than me that they should be the ones to give me that chance. Shopify is this awesome microcosm of making life better for people through empowering their online businesses. As they grow, the company grows, and I’m very lucky to have the chance to grow along with it.

I moved to Ottawa to work for a company called Fuel Industries as Senior Developer. We did advergaming, profile sites, digital marketing campaigns, and even full multiplayer virtual worlds. Fuel was different and interesting every day, and I was able to wear allot of hats. On any given day I could be doing web development, game design, server archetecture/development/deployment, to troubleshooting bugs. Fuel proves that there isn’t any limit to what you can accomplish when you put that many smart people in the same place.

Before that I lived and worked in Toronto and area doing a little contract work along with a full time gig at a place called Standardbred Canada. There I got the chance to get my feat wet with Drupal through a redesign of their main website along with php framework development through a pay per use service called TrackIT. Standardbred Canada gave me the chance to do design and development all the way from deploying servers from the bare metal through the final application release. It’s a great company with a real family feel. I’m glad that I got the chance to start my career there.

Oh, so you like web stuff, eh?

“an engineer is someone who can build for a dollar what a fool can build for twenty” – Robert A. Hienlein

In a way. I like taking problems, coming up with interesting solutions, then figuring out how to strip them down and make them as lean and fast as possible. Right now web development is a great way of creating things that millions of people will interact with. Those same people have short attention spans and visit sites intent on completing a task. Beating a competitor can be as simple as shaving half a second off the display speed of your pages. Web users want fast and effective, and sometimes those solutions aren’t as simple as paying your way out. Those are the problems I like to work on and when I do develop sites from scratch, I think about scalability and longevity of development from the beginning.

So you think you’re an engineer, eh?

Partially. I love engineering solutions to problems, but I also love developing ideas into something real and functional, so I consider myself a Developer more than anything. Taking an application or site from a collection of rough sketches to a living breathing thing is awesome.

Okay, I get it, you like making stuff…

Not only that, I also love doing it in different ways. I’m a language junkie. I’ve developed in languages from C and Java to Python, Ruby, and PHP. I’ve created apps in Objective C for both the OSX desktop and iPhone. More recently I’ve started falling more in love with functional programming through Scala and Clojure.

I’ve done site development with frameworks like codeigniter and rails, CMS software like wordpress and drupal. Right now I’m playing around with Lift as I learn as much Scala as possible.

I’ve also taken the leap recently to switch technologies into writing Ruby full time. I’ve been doing PHP primarily for 6 years now, and I’m really excited to do something different. I like PHP, I think it’s documentation is second to none. But after 6 years, I’m pretty aware of it’s limitations and after hitting them on a daily basis, I’m ready to try something new.

Right. It sounds like you’re a pretty narrow guy.

I hope not. I love to cook, read everything from romance novels through science fiction, watch good movies, and spend time outdoors. I’ve lived in just about every province in Canada (except Quebec) at one point or another. I also have two cats, a wonderful girl, and my mom. I love them all very much.

Okay. Now that I think you’re amazing, how can I find out more?

Any of those work for me. Interesting suggestions, offers, or good Asian soup recipe welcome at any time.