Programming Languages
Most of these are languages I have actually written original
work in, not simply cut-and-paste from web examples
or hacking someone else's code. I don't claim to
be an expert in all of them, but I have core competency
and blank-screen-to-running-program experience.
- BASIC
Visual BASIC (5.0, 6.0) .exe, COM .dll, .ocx
One of the languages I've used professionally the most. I was
the main VB programmer at one firm, where I led an extensive
VB project's development lifecycle and was responsible
for teaching the rest of the team (mostly C programmers)
how to develop that type of application in VB.
VBScript (.vbs, .asp)
MS Office VBA 9.0 (Office 2000).
- Applesoft
The first programming language I leanred, in 1986.
- TI-8x, 9x
- Casio 7xxx
- BASICA / GW-BASIC
- AmigaBASIC
- QBASIC
- QuickBASIC (4.5)
- Batch/Shell
Windows NT (.cmd)
There's more to the NT command processor than the command-line.
Extensive environment and parameter replacement and looping
are available to cmd files.
MS-DOS (.bat)
- bash, csh, ksh, etc.
- VMS (.com)
- C
C#
I'd like to work more in .NET as the opportunities become available.
Borland Turbo C
Borland C++
- GNU Unix g++
- Web
PHP
Lately, a very in-demand language since it can run in a completely
open-source OS, open-source server daemon, and open source interpreter.
Whether you or your clients like open-source because of the
philosophical implications
or simply because the cost is zero, the establishment of the
platform is increasing annually.
My experience
includes file manipulation, 3rd party program customization and
maintenence (specifically, SquirrelMail, PhpBB, MediaWiki),
database-generated pages, dynamic content, session management,
uploads, configuration, and elementary on-demand image manipulation.
ASP (VBScript, JScript)
A very important language in the development of multi-tier distributed
applications. I've used this as a wrapper for my own COM objects, and
as a complete language in itself for generating dynamic content for
browser consumption.
Java (servlets, classes)
JavaScript (.html, .js)
Sometimes used for mere display or validation of form input,
JavaScript has quite a bit of power for data manipulation and
presentation on the client-side of large web applications. I've come
to be able to trust it for making my pages flexible to clients'
needs while being cross-browser compliant.



DHTML (Netscape 4.0-7.1, Firefox 1.0.7,Internet Explorer
4.0-6.1, Opera 6.0, 7.22)
All web applications need to have this layer correct, and
relying on a design tool is insufficient for some fine-tuning
tasks, and for web pages that will be generated by the output of
custom programs. I've therefore made myself an expert on the structure of
DHTML as seen in a text editor, and write almost all of my
web pages in raw code. This includes knowing CSS, JavaScript,
object models, and how different browsers render the code.
XML 1.0
While not just a web language, I've been studying XML in a
certification-level class as an auditor in order to be able to
read and
write my own XML-Schemas, develop against XML data, consume
XML feeds, produce well-formed and valid XML output from
my programs, transform XML into HTML,
and be ready for the data-handling
worldviews of the future.
- Database
MySQL
Similar to the importance of PHP, MySQL's open-source basis makes
it increasingly in-demand. I've developed PHP against it, as
well as maintaining 3rd-party programs' databases on this
platform. The syntax is slightly different that MS-Access,
MS-SQL Server, or Oracle's SQL. While my familiarity with
the PhpMyAdmin tool on this platform has enabled me to make
high-level changes and field-level optimizations, most
of my queries are part of the programs I write.
MS-Access SQL
You may not realize that Jet syntax is stricter than
the permissable syntax in the Access interface. I've made myself
familiar with both of them (ADO through Jet ODBC vs. DAO in Access' VBA
and the query tools)
to be able to write the same kind of program in both a local and a
web-deployed environment if necessary.

Microsoft SQL Server Transact-SQL (6.0, 7.0)
I can't overstate the power of this server as a platform for writing and
maintaining enterprise-level applications. The speed of the engine
combined with the power of the T-SQL language in triggers, stored
procedures, and views makes this product a pleasure to develop against.
I say this exclusively from experience writing relational databases with
over a hundred tables, multiple triggers on most tables, several
hundred views, and several dozen powerful and extensive procedures.
- ADO 2.1, 2.5
- Oracle (Windows NT and LiNUX) SQL+
- Assembly
MASM