Curriculum Vitae

Personal Details:

Name:                       James T. Savidge
Address:                    Dallas, Texas
Phone Number:          (214) 575-2662
E-Mail:                      jsavidge at texas dot net
Home Page:               http://jsavidge.home.texas.net/
Nationality:                United States of America
Marital Status:            Married, no children
Most Recent Position:  Software Developer

Work and Skills Summary:

2007-2008                 Software Developer
2004-2006                 Programmer
1997-2004                 Senior Software Developer
1991-1997                 Consultant
1989-1991                 Programmer/Analyst
1988-1989                 Consultant
1985-1988                 Senior Development Programmer
1984-1985                 Learning Associate

I am a senior software consultant with twenty-three years of experience programming and designing software. I have participated in a range of projects that have included process and machine control, user interface design and implementation, programmer development tools, business and portable database systems, various communications protocols, and technical user documentation. My experience provides me a broad perspective when it comes to solving problems and the flexibility to implement innovative solutions.

Skill set:

Development Tools:

Professional Experience:

Adventa Control Technologies, Inc.

Software Developer: 2/2007 - 9/2008

I helped with the testing and preparation of the ControlWORKS system for the latest 4.3.x releases. This included the updating and running of automated and manual test suites, as well as various types of ad hoc testing.

I helped a customer track down and diagnose a VisualWorks debugger problem. The bug would only become evident after they installed an emergencyErrorHandler . This was reported to the author of the debugger, Terry Raymond, and he provided a fix that I tested and then relayed to the customer.

In addition to these two projects, my work at Adventa has involved the enhancement and upgrades of various customers’ ControlWORKS based semiconductor machine control systems. ControlWORKS is a semiconductor manufacturing framework for VisualWorks that utilizes StORE and ENVY/Manager for version control management.

Digital Matrix Systems, Inc.

Programmer: 2/2005 - 2/2007

I designed and implemented a MISMO compliant request and response process to the existing request and response options of the ADAM and CreditToolkit credit platform applications. Our implementation of the industry standard XML interchange format received certification from the Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization in April of 2006. 

In a smaller project, I added the option of including a LexisNexis ThinDex Score to credit reports requested through the CreditBrowser, CreditToolkit and Transaction Interceptor credit platform applications.

The applications are written in a proprietary Object Oriented version of Forth.

Prescient Applied Intelligence Inc. (Formerly The viaLink Company and Prescient.)

Programmer: 7/2004 - 1/2005

I helped maintain, extend and document a group of web-based and batch processing based e-commerce applications in use by commercial retailers and their suppliers. The applications enabled viaLink’s customers to transparently synchronize data between multiple providers and subscribers and to have reports generated as the data moved through the system. The applications were written using VisualWorks 7.2.x. VisualWave was used to produce the webpages, and an Oracle database was used to store the Smalltalk objects. Some testing was done using Toad, and Cincom’s StORE was used for version control management. An official job description for my position is available.

Objective Solutions, Inc.

Senior Software Developer: 11/1997 - 6/2004

My last project was a SEMI/GEM compliant host simulation program written in Visual C# and .Net utilizing the Cimetrix CIMConnect SECS/GEM communication protocol library. My work on this project also included writing the application user documentation. CVS and TortoiseCVS are used for version control management.

I am also worked on Automation Monitor, a client/server application that uses digital and analog video cameras to remotely monitor and troubleshoot semiconductor-manufacturing systems. The software records segments of streaming video whenever user specified data values change or specified alarms or events occur on the monitored equipment. For this project, I created Smalltalk plug-ins for ControlWORKS systems that enable reporting of variable, event and alarm changes using TCP/IP sockets and the XML & SOAP protocols. I also made improvements to the user interface of the video archive viewer application using Visual C# and .Net. In addition, I researched and compiled a listing of commercially available Firewire cameras and C/CS mount lenses. CVS and TortoiseCVS are used for the C# version control management and ENVY/Manager is used for the Smalltalk/ControlWORKS version control management.

Prior to these two projects, my work at Objective Solutions involved the development of numerous semiconductor machine control systems using ControlWORKS. My contributions included providing software control systems for the hardware and software aspects of robots, front-loaders, aligners, and wafer coolers. I wrote numerous user interfaces for operator control of these systems and wrote code to help the systems comply with SEMI/GEM standards. Rational Rose was used on some of these projects to help with analysis and design. ControlWORKS is a framework for VisualWorks 2.x that utilizes ENVY/Manager for version control management. My recently released development tools are designed to improve the development process in these programming environments.

COMSYS Partners (Formerly RealTime Consulting, Inc.)

Consultant: 7/1996 - 10/1997

At the client Sprint, I worked on a VisualWorks 2.0 OS/2 application called Base Management. It was designed to allow Sprint customer service representatives to collect information about their assigned base of customers and develop campaigns to sell new Sprint products. My responsibilities also included mentoring inexperienced programmers. ObjectTeam (now known as Telelogic Tau) was used to do some of the analysis and design for the project and ENVY/Manager was used for version control management.

I added new features to another VisualWorks application called Brain 2.x. It automated many of the mainframe interactions performed by the agents in the BSG Gold Customer Service department.

On both projects I had additional duties as a toolsmith. In this role, I continued development of my DevTools and added a "skip" function for the VisualWorks debugger. This feature allowed the programmer to temporally "no-op" a "message send" during a debugging session.

CIBER, Inc.

Consultant: 5/1993 - 12/1996

At the client InterVoice, Inc. I worked on release 1.0 of the OS/2 application InVision Studio. It is a visual language/development environment for creating VRU call processing systems. As part of the design team, my responsibilities included implementing the graphical display of the language and the automatic repositioning and updating algorithms. I also implemented Drag & Drop and "on-the-fly" micro-help. Development was originally done in Digitalk Smalltalk V and then ported to VisualWorks 2.xENVY/Manager was used for version control management.

At the client MCI, I worked on release 2.x of a OS/2/DB2 Client-Server system that managed the process flow for a leased line contract that MCI had with the FAA. My participation ranged from writing low-level code in SQL and Microfocus Cobol to adding new GUI enhancements in EASEL OS/2 (now known as ESL).

At the client Career Communications Group, I wrote the corporate and commercial versions of ResumE:Mail. The software provided form-based résumé editing and a front end to the "Opportunity Network...On Line" BBS. The corporate version provided the user with the ability to edit online employment ads and the ability to download any résumés uploaded from the commercial version of the product. The two version of the application were written for Windows 3.x with XVT's XVT++ 2.0 (now known as DSC++), Sequiter's CodeBase 5.0, Dovetail's Help System 2.0, Greenleaf Comm++ v3.0 and Borland C++ 3.1.

Keane (acquired AGS Information Systems)

Consultant: 12/1991 - 4/1993

At the client IBM, I was assigned to the Supply Management project in Austin, Texas. The program was designed to provide the company with a modern internal/external supply management system. I was assigned to the Purchase Order and Bug Fix sub-teams. The project succeeded in delivering the first version of the program and it matched specifications. It was written using an internal IBM Object-Oriented language called SEDL++, an IBM class library called Product Manager, and the objects and data were mapped to a DB2 database using SQL.

Information Systems Consulting

Consultant: 1/1991 - 11/1991

At the client Criterion, Inc., (now know as Peopleclick,) I worked on an Affirmative action tracking program for Windows 3.x, using Glockenspel C++ 2.x and CommonView 2.x. Data and objects were mapped to a SQL database using CommonBase (recently known as CB++) and DBWindows (now known as SQLBase).

At the client Concurrent Knowledge Systems, I worked on a government electronic board specifications-check program for Windows 3.x, using Borland C++ 2.x and Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows. Data and objects were passed between programs using Borland's Paradox Engine (now known as Borland Database Engine).

Sage Software (acquired ACT! software)

Programmer/Analyst: 12/1989 - 1/1991

I helped the development team produce the 2.00 version of ACT!, a contact management application. The product was written in Glockenspel C++ 1.x. My contributions were many and varied and included "hit-and-run programming", "bug hunting" and the editing of context-sensitive help.

Milam Design Services, Inc.

Consultant: 9/1988 - 8/1989

At the client Ten X Technology, I was the primary implementer of the user-interface for the "back-end" CASE product HyperVue, a source code maintenance and analysis tool for the C programming language. The interface and system were implemented in Digitalk's Smalltalk/V 286, under IBM PC DOS. I made additional contributions to the project as toolsmith; coding new development tools for the Smalltalk environment. I also participated in the design of a virtual memory scheme using Btrieve.

Datamatic, Inc.

Senior Development Programmer: 6/1985 - 9/1988

I supported, modified, and designed programs for MSI and Telxon hand held terminals using Forth, UBasic (a Basic variant), C, and Tcal (a Cobol subset). ASCII and EBCDIC protocols were used for asynchronous communications. The terminals were used in electronic meter reading, and inventory control applications. My last major contribution was in R&D, where I designed and wrote code to enable the terminals to read many different types of electronic meters using a GE Opticom Port.

Eastfield Community College

Business Division: Learning Associate: 2/1984 - 5/1885

My duties included supervising the students in a computer lab and keeping twenty one IBM PC's in working order. I assisted students by helping them debug and clean up their programming assignments. Students came to my lab to do work in Pascal, Basic, APL, dBASE, and Lotus 1-2-3.

Personal Projects and Research:

I have released the latest version of my development tool add-ons for VisualWorks, ENVY/Manager, and ControlWORKS. As a demonstration of my technical user writing skills, please see the included comprehensive documentation.

During the above project, I helped Logiciels Malus Softwares to release a new version of Bambusa. This software is a web site management tool that has three main functions. It helps maintain web page keywords, and it uses those keywords to produce tables of contents and website indexes. Most of what I did involved tracking down and diagnosing bugs. In addition I used my UI design skills to help refine the usability of both the internal and external operation of the program.

In one of my earliest research projects, I developed improvements to the Neon object-oriented programming environment. (Current implementations are known as Yerk and Mops.) Included were multiple-inheritance, local procedures and a multi-window, single-stepping debugger. Yerk is a Macintosh programming language based on a hybrid of concepts from Forth and Smalltalk. For more details about my additions, see - MacTech: Vol. 4 No. 7, July 1988, pages 42 - 45.

On the lighter side of things I conducted an experiment in passive cooling.

Education:

Three years college towards a Computer Science/Engineering degree at Eastfield and Richland Community Colleges of the Dallas County Community College District.

References:

Becky Cooper - My manager at Adventa - 972-543-1684.

Jimmy Freeman - My supervisor at DMS, Inc.

Cerena Hrasko - My supervisor at The viaLink Company.

Gregg Schwartz - My supervisor at Objective Solutions, Inc.

Jean Le Clerc - Owner and operator of Logiciels Malus Softwares.

Kevin Arledge - A co-worker at The viaLink Company and a fellow contractor when I was a Consultant to Sprint.


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