About TEK Solve

Seriously?

If you got here by pressing the "Seriously?" button, then the answer is "No". My Home Page is what I imagine I would get if I handed over huge amounts of money to a marketing company. Yeah, a pipe-dream!

Here in the real (multi-value) world, we are usually saddled with systems that were not well-designed in the first place, and have subsequently been mangled/twisted/stretched by dozens of developers. All of whom, for various reasons, (including: time-constraints; budget-constraints; fear; laziness; shiny-new-toy syndrome; no understanding of the importance of good design), have never done anything to make things better.

I'm not saying developers are solely to blame. No... the business/users have also done their bit - by providing foggy and constantly moving definitions of requirements, coupled with unrealistic time-scales. But the biggest cause is the lack of dialogue, (between IT and the business), before developers start hacking the code. Since when did you witness a conversation where IT explains: "To deliver the requirement, the best option would be to refactor the database and change dozens of programs. This is going to take quite a bit longer to deliver, but will be a whole lot easier to support going forward." and the business says: "I'm in".

The Boring stuff

Yes, I've dabbled with PHP, Python, MySQL, C#, .Net, SQL Server, Wordpress, and many, many years ago Basic, COBOL & Plan. But, for the last 40 years, I've mostly worked on multi-valued systems - including: Pick R83, Reality, Universe & Unidata. I also have a pretty good understanding of Linux/Unix.

If you wanted a new Wordpress website, I could do it, (in fact, I have), but I wouldn't be my first choice. It's going to take me 5 times longer than an expert. And, to be honest, I'm happy sticking to what I'm good at: developing software for multi-value databases.

What have I worked on

It's a long list:

Utilities, including B-Tree software, 4GL, Automated File Resizing, version control & software change/release.
Accounting Software
Shop-floor data collection
Health systems
Local Government systems
Mail Order packages
Integrated Order Processing, Stock Control, Forecasting, Purchasing, Warehouse Management - with website and EDI integration.
Wealth Management
Building Supplies systems.

About me

Hi, I'm Steve Haddon and I've been doing software development for a long, long time. Many people of my age have retired by now - but I actually enjoy doing stuff. Probably down to a compulsive work ethic. I'll explain a little about that, and how I got here, (which is not the conventional route), below.

My father was a small-scale tenant farmer. By that I mean, (at around 75 acres), the farm was not a small-holding, but a long way short of wealthy farmer. Going on holiday and celebrating Christmas were dependant on everything coming good - including the weather. My brother and I were both helping out on the farm from the age of 10'ish - even when we should have been at school. My brother "smashed" the record for highest absenteeism in a school year - and not one of those days off was down to illness.

I breezed through Junior School, with very little effort and enjoyed pretty much every subject. But it went rapidly down hill once I got to Senior School. Poor attendance didn't help - but I think the ease with which I got through my early school years, caught me out. I scraped through my O'Levels into 6th form, but by the end of my first year in the 6th form, I got the "you're wasting your time and ours" chat. I totally agreed and left!