I excised a succession of dated hip-hop references, considered admitting I'd been involved in letting some dogs out a while back, then finally decided that what the world really, really needed from the title of my first post was the answer to the 1984 Musical Question of the Year.  Which says little about me, per se, but maybe much about my priorities.

I go by many names -- programmer, technical lead, developer, systems analyst, architect (<-- this one only when AJ's not looking).  I work for a small professional services company (to be very vague) in Minneapolis.  Over the last ten years, I've worked on designing, building, and maintaining a wide variety of systems for data collection, reporting, and facilitating certain types of communications between employees.  We use mostly Microsoft technologies, but use free/OSS tools extensively.  Lately -- basically the whole last year and a half -- I've been going back and forth on the right balance between Fire-and-Motion and learning the new technologies that are starting to make life easier.

Besides the stuff that AJ said on the "Who Are You?" post, my main reason for wanting to do this blog is to pass on some of my more obscure programming knowledge.  I often find myself doing things that no one else seems to be doing, at least as far as Google can tell me.  And I figure that the next time somebody needs to implement an AJAX driver for your pile or your bus, using the Eviscerator pattern in OBrainfsck, they could probably use the benefit of my experience.  Because it was very, very difficult.  The bus driver especially.

So, welcome, glad you're here, glad we're here, enough with the formalities, let's get down to whatever will pass as "business" around here.

We are developers.  What kind of developers we are depends on who you are.  If you want us to develop your business by selling stuff or getting folks to give you money, that's the wrong kind of development.  If you are a prospective employer that is about to offer us hundreds of thousands of dollars to write really interesting projects with bleeding edge technology, than we are two things:

1. Professional Information Technology Application Developers, or PITADevelopers.  Welcome to our website!  Please contact us immediately!
2. Ready for our first paycheck.  Oh, and don't read anything after this sentence.

If that is not who you are, more clarification is needed.  Pretend you are sixteen and are in your sophomore English class.  An attractive personage (gender neutral) passes you a note that says the following:

Dear <your name>,

I think you're pretty cool.  I would like to know more about you.  Are you a/n (circle one):

1. Application Developer
2. Chicken Farmer
3. Friend or family member of this site's owner(s)
4. Psychological Profiler
5. Enterprise Architect
6. Search Spider
7. Other Technology Blogger
8. Rock Star
9. IT Contractor
10. "CSI: Miami" Fan
11. Skimmer of Tech/Dev Sites for Gray Boxes with Text in Courier New
12. IBM Employee
13. Empress
14. Extrovert
15. Someone with No Sense of Humor/One Who Takes Things Very Seriously

Please return this note to me.

XOXOXO

<Name of Attractive Personage>

To further this scenario, I will be playing the role of "Attractive Personage." 

If you circled Item 2, may we acquire some chickens?
If you circled Item 3 you probably should just stop reading now.  Your eyes may not be able to handle the amount of rolling required to continue.
If you circled Item 4 you are awesome!
If you circled Item 6 then <insert sql injection attack here>.
If you circled Item 9 go work on your resume.
If you circled Item 13, we are your long-lost children.
If you circled Item 8, 10, or 15, you are in the wrong place.
If you circled Item 5, we may actually be mortal enemies, or I want your job.

All others, welcome to the Pain-In-the-Ass Developers' website.

Now, I certainly don't want to give anyone the idea that we're bad developers.  I think we're pretty good at our jobs, which mainly consist of programming (and analyzing and designing and all that stuff) various systems with Microsoft technologies.  But we have a long history of working with Perl, PHP, and other programming languages and tools outside the Microsoft ecosystem. And we pay a lot of attention to technology blogs on the web, as well as what's happening with technology at our vastly different employers and in the general technology universe.  We're certainly not extroverted, but we're thoughtful people, and have decided to share our views on this website. 

So exactly what makes us "pains in the ass?"  Exactly what I said above.  Instead of blindly munching at the technology trough, we have sufficient experience to have evolved into people that ask a lot of questions, many of which aren't always welcome.  Personally, I have seen enough unscrupulous stuff in the application development milieu to make me want to add my voice to the mix.  This site will be my place to be a pain in the ass; to ask questions and pick unwanted arguments.  But I also intend to describe my views on coding these days, which will definitely include examples of anything cool or new that I pick up (which will be in nice boxes with Courier New font, for those that circled Item 11). 

You've got it.  You've found another coding blog.  Except this one is the awesomest one ever.