Experience: >10 Years.

My preferred development and work platform, by a wide margin, is Mac.

My first ever Mac was an early 2011 17" MacBook Pro. I loved everything about that computer (except its self destructive graphics card), and drove it daily for almost ten years. With the old giant now "out to pasture", I'm currently using a 13" M1 MacBook Pro.

Experience: <1 Year. (I'm new to the blogging game.)

I am an introvert by nature. In order to be more outgoing, and to create more learning opportunities, I've decided to try my hand at blogging. Wish me luck!

Experience: 3 Years (4-8 Projects).

This site, mpettersson.com, is built using Bootstrap 4 (5 was in alpha while construction, so it'll have to wait for the next iteration of the site). Although I am not an expert, I would say I'm a fan, and would suggest it's use.

I've used Bootstrap in several other projects (both personal and at Cisco); it's especially helpful in quick POCs or tools.

Experience: 7 Years.

I began at Cisco as an intern during my Bachelor's degree, then transitioned to a full time Software Engineer II, and ended as a Software Engineer III.

For a more complete summary of my responsibilities at Cisco, as well as Endorsements and Recommendations, please see my LinkedIn profile.

Experience: >10 Years (10-20 Projects).

Historically, I've always worked on the back-end, with infrequent exceptions requiring CSS (and other front end skills).

Recently, I've made goals to become a more rounded (potential full stack) engineer. As I learn and develop as a front end skills I am continually gaining respect for CSS as a (style sheet) language.

Bonus Fact: My favorite aspect of CSS3 isn't the fancy attribute selectors, it is rgba function (followed closely by the opacity property).

Experience: Primarily relational (MySQL, SQLite, and Postgres), with several projects using non-relational databases (specifically Redis and Cassandra).

I generally use APIs to interface with databases and am, by no means, a DB specialist. However, when the intermittent need arises for a stored procedure or one-off query, I am capable of completing the task.

Experience: <1 Year.

This version of mpettersson.com is officially my first (real/non-tutorial) project using Django. I am impressed!

Bonus Fact: The first two previous versions of mpettersson.com were built with (1) static HTML/CSS and (2) WordPress/PHP.

Experience: 3 Years.

Since school I used virtual machines for development, testing, security, and general learning, however, Docker has now replaced 90% of those old VMs with simple containers.

Experience: >10 Years.

Git and learning to program, for me, went hand in hand. Please don't get the wrong idea; I'm not a Git Jedi, nor am I a git power user. I'm just a simple, and loyal, Git user.

Bonus Fact: I used SVN a few times at Cisco... Wasn't a fan.

Experience: 4 Years.

The majority of Java based projects I worked on at Cisco utilized Gradle.

Experience: 2 Years (HTML5), >10 Years (HTML).

Experience: >10 Years.

Java was the main language I used at UTD (at the time, it was the language they used in most C.S. courses). Furthermore, I used Java in more than 50% of the projects I worked on at Cisco. Since leaving Cisco I must admit that I've used it sparingly (I have a new favorite).

Experience: >10 Years (10-20 Projects).

Historically, I've always worked on the back-end, with infrequent exceptions requiring JavaScript (and other front end skills).

Recently, I've made goals to become a more rounded (potential full stack) engineer. As a result, I've branched a few JavaScript repos with the intent to add functionality and to learn.

Experience: 2 Years.

Towards the end of my time at Cisco, we shifted to DevOps model with CI. It was during this time that we heavily relied on Jenkins.

Experience: >10 Years (10-20 Projects).

Historically, I've always worked on the back-end, with infrequent exceptions requiring jQuery (and other front end skills).

Recently, I've made goals to become a more rounded (potential full stack) engineer. As part of my goal, I completely rewrote this site (mpettersson.com), using jQuery along the way.

Experience: >10 Years.

I have used many different Linux distros over the years; mostly for backend servers, and occasionally for security training/learning. That being said, I'm definitely not a sys. admin, I rely heavily on documentation for server setup and when encountering issues.

Experience: 4 Years.

Experience: 3 Years.

I used MySQL more frequently at Cisco. This site uses PostgreSQL for production and SQLite for development.

For any given project, I generally attempt to use the most appropriate DB; therefore, (with documentation) I am a jack of all databases (a master of none).

Experience: 2 Years (4-8 Projects).

My most recent use of PostgreSQL is with this site.

For any given project, I generally attempt to use the most appropriate DB; therefore, (with documentation) I am a jack of all databases (a master of none).

Experience: 6 Years.

Although I occasionally used Python in school (10+ years ago), I didn't fully embrace the language until about 6 years ago. Since leaving Cisco I have not been limited by large performance conscience projects, so gradually, I've transitioned to Python (where possible). This is due to the brevity, flexibility, and documentation of the language. I especially enjoy the pseudo-functional aspects it supports, such as lambdas, closures, decorators, and first class functions.

(Note: pseudo is used above because the functional paradigm is all about being stateless and immutable, or, not having side effects).

Experience: <1 Year.

In early 2014, I briefly experimented with Raspberry Pi, then, life got in the way. Fast forward to the recent past, where I began to notice articles using the Raspberry Pi Zero for interesting projects. Not too long after I decided that I ought to have yet one more (Covid) hobby.

Experience: <1 Year.

While building the latest iteration of this site, I decided to give SASS a try (after all, that's what Bootstrap used). Up to that point I have only ever used CSS and was simply astounded by the improvements (and compatibility) that SASS offers.

Experience: Varies by language.

Out of the polyglot necessity, I've written, maintained, and fixed many Tcl, Bash, Expect, Perl, and Python scripts over the years. My (current) favorite, and the only (scripting) language I profess to know is Python.

Experience: 3 Years.

During my time at UTD, I was heavily involved in security; my Masters of Science (in Computer Science) has a focus on Information Assurance, I was a member of the UTD Computer Security Group, took part in Capture the Flag events, and attended many workshops, talks, and lectures.

Although my love and respect for security remains, my security related skills has since atrophied, never being put to use in industry (at Cisco).

Experience: >10 Years.

I almost always Vim (or plain Vi on prod servers) open in a terminal or window, and use a mix of Vim and IDEs (JetBrains) for development and note taking.

Experience: >10 Years.

Since UTD I used virtual machines for development, testing, security, and general learning (we got free licenses for just about everything). My use of VMware peaked at Cisco with performance related projects creating/controlling/destroying hundreds of VMs. Although, I've been gradually moving away from VMware (in favor of Docker), I still use and maintain a handful of VMs (but am finding it harder and harder to pay for licenses when Docker is free).

Experience: >10 Years.

I grew up on Windows (DOS before Windows), even used Windows servers at Cisco. However, for the last 5 years, 99% of my work has involved Mac or Linux-based systems.