Bio: Steve Bottomley

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Bio: Steve Bottomley
15-July-2002 -- Susan Pichotta
 
This week, the Icetips News Network is pleased to feature our first Australian. Known on the newsgroups as "Steve B.", he was "an early joiner of the lazy programmer's club". And before that? He's another... you guessed it... musician! And he sent some great pics, too. But I must admit to being puzzled by his "anything else you want to mention"...
 
Who do you work for?
The Australian Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs. I've been trying to get my own company up and running but every time I think I've gotten things to the stage of being complete enough to say "I'm done" a new and interesting project comes along.
 
What do you like best about what you do now?
Control, size and variety. I have control over all the design aspects of the projects we take on. These include things like our global forms purchasing, distribution and inventory management system to our point-in-time legislation and procedural advice system. With offices all over the world including some really out-of-the-way places the concept of connectivity takes on a whole new perspective. Some of our software also gets sold commercially and some is really exciting but may never see the light of day outside the Department.
 
What has been one of your biggest challenges in using Clarion?
Putting it down. I enjoy seeing applications come together way more than the mundane day-to-day management tasks. Actually the Team Topspeed experience was pretty challenging also. It forced me to delve into areas of Clarion I had either ignored or didn't know existed (gotta thank RAS, Dave and the gang for thinking I had a clue. Well, at least at the beginning).
 
What has been one of your biggest challenges in business?

"The obligatory home office shot"

As mentioned above, trying to get one started, but with my current position it's politics. Juggling relationships with the big iron boys and infrastructure owners. All our IT was outsourced several years ago and that's proving to be a less than ideal situation.
 
 
Do you use any computer languages besides Clarion?
If we need something that falls outside of Clarion's strength I'll dip into C++ to get it done. The last was for some of our processes that we wanted to run as NT services and Clarion isn't great in that department (yet).
 
When did you start using Clarion?
It was version 2.1. It just sounded really cool and easy to use (I was an early joiner of the lazy programmers club). The more that Bob and co. at SoftVelocity do to make my programming life easier the more I appreciate the product. I originally started in a computer administration job so I could afford to keep doing my music and from there, out of sheer boredom, started teaching myself about programming. I call those the days of sex and drugs and Fortran and Cobol although I couldn't proclaim to have ever gotten proficient in either. The Prime and Perkin Elmer minis, PDP 11/10 and the big Cyber 205, punch cards and DecWriters, I don't miss those days, computing wise, at all although the under floor air conditioning was great in summer.
 

The summer retreat is just down there...

 
What's the coolest project(s) you've worked on using Clarion?
The next one (ain't it always). We're moving our country information service from a centralised model to a collaborative peer-to-peer model. Those offices all over the world contain people making decisions about clients from all over the world (and not necessarily the same country). We gather huge amounts of information from a range of sources. Building it all into something that's actually useful and available to those decision makers creates some interesting challenges.
 

Would you trust your software development to this man?

Have you done anything for a living other than software development?
I was a musician (guitar) for a number of years but never quite attained the fame and fortune to make a profitable career out of it and I blame disco entirely. But it was huge fun while it lasted. It seems that going from that to computing is a logical progression. I'm always surprised at the number of musos in the profession.
 
What are your hobbies/what do you like to do when you're not using Clarion?
Photography, music, travel, motor cycles, scuba diving lots of things although finding time to do everything as often as I would like can be a little problematic. The last time I picked up a guitar earned me a blister because I've lost the calluses.
 
 
Married, children, grandchildren, other close family you want to mention?
Single (know anyone who might want the job?). My mother, two brothers and one niece live in town. My father lives in Brisbane (north eastern Australia).
 
Where were you born/where do you live now?
Born, bred and still living in Canberra which is the national capital of Australia. Canberra is called the bush capital for a very good reason and as cities go it's very beautiful and easy going.
 

The bush capital - Canberra, Australia

 
What do you like about where you live?
Life style. Canberra is an hour and a half from the beach in summer where the family has a house and two hours from the snow in winter (sounds like all I want to do is get out of the place). I'm six minutes and three corners from work yet my home backs onto a golf course (no I don't play) which in turn backs onto the bush.
 
Have you lived any other interesting places?
I lived for a year in Lexington Massachusetts when I was about 12 (grasping at straws to appear interesting ya think?). Really nice place that I would like to go back and see.
 

View from my back yard The white bird on the left is a cockatoo and the one on the right is a top-knot pigeon.

 

	Here's a closer one of a Cockatoo. A nice looking bird but dopey, noisy and a tendency to be destructive. But they can be taught to talk.

What is your favorite food?
Pass the menu. Actually, I like to cook, taking from lots of different influences although I'm yet to have the pleasure of the Cajun experience. Going to the markets to see what's good and making the menu up as you pick and choose is pretty much a daily activity.
 
What is your favorite drink?
We make some extremely good wines in Australia. I would have built up a decent cellar by now but unfortunately we make some extremely good wines in Australia.
 
What is your favorite type of music?
I guess rock would be my favourite. From the oldies like Zeplin, Ten Years After, Rush & Marillion to some of the new ones like Creed. In general pretty much any style, except rap, can achieve my play list.
 
What is your favorite book?
For books I mostly like science fiction/fantasy. At the moment I'm waiting for the next George RR Martin book in the "Game of Thrones" series to come out.
 
If Clarion never existed, what do you think you would be doing at this time?
Possibly the same thing in a different language. It's the creativity that keeps me hooked.
 
Anything else you want to mention?
Super phosphate.
 

Heaven on a stick - the Australian Whitsunday Islands