About Matt

Welcome to Matt Harrison's site on the web.

I was born and raised in Utah. I have a Computer Science degree from Stanford. Since graduating from school I have been working for various startups in the Bay Area mostly doing tooling and prototype development in load balancing, search, open source and data visualization. In 2006 I relocated to Utah, and later co-founded a company that has no real web presence.

I like to program in python (though it's not uncommon for me to use javascript, shell, sql or even java). I also like to present. I have spoken at PyCON, SCALE and OSCON, as well as UTOSC and Python user groups in Utah and the Bay Area. Have been lucky to attend a slew of conferences too: LinuxWorld, OSBC, MysqlUC, MashupCamp and FOSS.in. I've contributed to a few open source projects, SQLAlchemy, Nutch, Inkscape and Gentoo being some of the bigger ones (as well as some smaller projects mostly in python). I've created some cheatsheets that might be useful: Generating Excel (xls) in pure python,Intro to Python, and the Executable Python Cheatsheet, Intro to Doctest, patterns for 'scripting' in python. I've put some of my code up on github.

My current interests include characteristics of successful open source projects, drivers of innovation in open source, open source on the desktop, web technologies, python, and new bleeding edge technologies. This is the main focus of this blog. Semi normal interests include ultimate (goaltimate), biking, backpacking, composting, organic gardening and teaching myself a few chords. Topics such as these may occasionally appear. Feel free to spam my gmail account using matthewharrison .

Panela, for those who didn't google it, is a drink in Colombia, where I lived for two years.

Presentations

• Oct 2009 UTOSC I presented on "What every programmer should know about code coverage", gave an "Intermeditate Python Workshop" and lightning introduction the Utah Python Group.
• Jul 2009 OSCON I presented on "Best Practices for 'Scripting' with Python 3" and assited with "Innovative Interaction using Wiimotes.
• Jun 2009 Utah Python "Quick intro to PyGTK and Glade"
• Mar 2009 Pycon All I really need to know about [testable, maintainable, packagable] "scripts". Video here
• Fairfield Junior HighA career in programming.
• Feb 2009 SCALE7x "Scripting" with python: Maintainable, Testable and & Distributable. slides and handout
• Feb 2009 Utah Python "All I ever wanted to know about scripting" slides handout
• Hannah Holbrook Elementary What does a programmer do?
• Aug 2008 UTOSC Using Lasers Webcams and Wiimotes in Python. (Given twice due to crowd feedback) 90% of the Python you need to know slides
• Mar 2008 Pycon Managing complexity (and testing) slides video. I now think that the name of this is a misnomer. It should be "Everything I need to know about coverage" (note that the examples are in python but the general idea is applicable to all languages)
• Nov 2007 Utah PythonQuick and Dirty Intro to Testing (and coverage) in Python.slides(rst), handout, sample code
• Sep 2007 Utah PythonPython 101. slides(rst)
• Aug 2007 UTOSC Python 101
• July 2007 OSCON Programming with dynamic confidence. slides
• May 2007 Utah Python Programming with dynamic confidence
• 2006 Pycon Sam: Transforming a commandline tool to web 3000
• Feb 2006 Baypiggies Sam: Transforming a commandline tool to web 3000

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