About

I'm Tom, I'm 26 and work as a Web Developer (Specialising mainly in PHP) for a web design agency in Milton Keynes in the UK. I have had an interest in programming since messing around with the code for various computer games since I was about twelve. I consider it an art more than a science and love to explore the creative side more than the functional side of the subject. Since then I've been to college and university, now I get to do what I enjoy for a living! I have a first class BSc Hons degree in Software Engineering and if I could afford it I'd love to do a PhD on the subject of Software Architectures. Programming wise, my interests lie in best practices, clean code software architectures and separation of concerns.

Some of my other interests are: Drinking too much, Music (Live, especially!), Writing (hence the blog, though I'd like to condense all my ideas into a book one day), Not very good photography, Technology, and enjoying life. For this blog, I'm going to keep it programming related. It's a place I can store my musings and share ideas with the world. I'm also not going to make any commitments as to how often I update it and I'll only write on topics which spark my interest... though suggestions are welcome.

Why r.je?

I've always wanted a single character domain name. I like the cleanliness and minimalism. Back in 2004 I spent a whole day doing whois lookups and reading domain name policies to find TLDs which both allowed single character names and which had some available. I worked out there are fewer than 300 possible single character domain names due to the limited number of TLDs which allow them. .JE was the only TLD which I managed to find available single character names. All the others which allowed them had zero availability. I chose r, firstly because it was available and secondly because I like the aesthetics of it (how the top of the r and bottom of the j wrap around the dot). I now own several others. No, they are not for sale.

I'm using it because I like it. Sure I own tombutler.net but that's not nearly as interesting, easy to type or memorable as r.je

Contact me

If you would like to contact me, please fill in my contact form or e-mail me at: tom@r.je. I'm always open to answering questions, debating best practices and generally discussing the philosophy of programming.