About me
I am a programmer with a PhD in cognitive psychology, specialising in web development and software for academic psychology / neuroscience research. I work at the University of Sussex, but also regularly undertake freelance work. My email address is jamesa333uk (at) gmail.com. I can also be reached on linkedin.
You can see a list of some of the things I have done work page. You can also check out my:
Twitter
Github
Stack
Overflow.
My programming philosophy
Write code that is easy to understand, and easy to change. Don't follow fads, use languages and frameworks
that are stable and have a good community. Follow a sense of freedom, software should be malleable. Think of
scale - practices appropriate for a large team are not necessarily appropriate for a small team. Complexity
cannot be avoided, only moved or worse, hidden.
Programming is a fun and peaceful activity, and if it isn't, then figure out why!
Frequently asked questions
I did a BSc at Nottingham, a MSc at Exeter and finally a PhD at Surrey. My PhD was a series of experiments to explore whether ones language has an effect on the perception of colour. I conducted many experiments using EEG and psychophysics on people from different linguistic background, and concluded that – no it doesn’t – well it’s a bit more complicated than that :). After I finished, I realised the potential for a career as research programmer which would allow me to work on many different projects, without ever having to be subject to anonymous peer review.
I began programming on a BBC Microcomputer in school when I was 11 years old. I learnt how to make an educational game where you send a rocket to mars in BASIC, and would skip lunch times to create my own games based on what I was learning. Nothing has really changed since this blueprint, apart from that I don’t skip lunch. I am self-taught, originally from tinkering and modding games, and then later more seriously from books.
I like reading (history / religion / great novels), banjo, mandolin, walking and camping in the countryside, oil painting and playing chess.
Challenge me on chess.com!
Yes! This is Henry, he was born October 2019.
This is Borcsa who was a rescue from Hungary who is sadly no longer with us, but will never be forgotten.
A tool for remapping key presses (useful for old apps):
github.com/jamesalvarez/SimpleKeyRemapper
A draggable pie chart class
github.com/jamesalvarez/draggable-piechart
A tool for matching colours when doing oil painting from computer monitor:
github.com/jamesalvarez/ArtColourPreview
A work-in-progress turn based football game - this is a multiplayer game, it does work but you need
someone to play it with.
jamesalvarez.github.io/TBF/tbf/