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List:       xml-cocoon-dev
Subject:    Introduction
From:       Leszek Gawron <lgawron () mobilebox ! pl>
Date:       2004-11-10 0:22:16
Message-ID: 41915F38.2010908 () mobilebox ! pl
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I meant to write it earlier but I hoped to do it on my new computer but
you cannot install Windows and all critical patches without getting
infected first :)

There is really not much to write as I am quite young (I found it very
stressing to write this introduction comparing myself to people here
with such experience).

I live in Poland in one of major polish cities Poznan. I have graduated
Computer Science from Poznan University Of Technology only two years ago
(2002). I was specialized in Software Engineering and wrote my Master
Thesis on comparing pair programming (one of main eXtreme Programming
activities) with "offline" reviews.

Still studying I have been employed at Magellan Software. It was a
polish district of US company that was producing content archiving
software. Some years ago it has been bought by german company Gauss
Interprise. The polish district has broken links with the main company
turning into Magellan Service.

The main idea behind the software was to scan a lot of text documents in
a great speed (is up to 220 A4 pages per minute fast enough for you
?;-)) and then store them on AS/400 machine. Magellan US has created a
solution for managing and browsing big archives of scanned data/print
spools on AS/400. Here in Poland we have been implementing
scanning/indexing interfaces mainly using Microsoft Visual C++. Also a
lot of system protocols had to be reverse engineered as we have not been
provided with full documentation. That was hell, really.

Later on we have been also attempting to provide something less costly
to our customers than AS/400 and turned our eyes into NT and Unix
platform. During the time I was mainly responsible for backup managing
applications and for modules that organized the usage of optical
jukeboxes. The project has succeeded (scanning something line 50-100k
pages/day in outsourcing) and is being still developed but I have left
the company something like 2 years ago because I had a chance to create
my own.

With a group of my friends (there were 5 of us in the beginning) we have
created MobileBox company that targeted the mobile devices market. The
main company's capital were our heads and very little money. In the
first explorations we've been searching for technology that would allow
us to provide data for your mobile devices (PDAs mainly) in XML format
as well as take care of business logic. It was the first time I had a
contact with cocoon. Even though I had a lot of experience in C++ Java
was a little bit awkward for me.

We've been growing quite fast for last 2 years. Right now we are running
project in those fields:
   - SFA
   - merchandising
   - loyality programs
as well as something quite fresh in Poland: telemetry.

There is one common denominator for all of the project:
   - the usage of cocoon as our application framework :)
   - the usage of mobile devices (PDAs, phones, wireless modems)
   - the usage of wireless communication (WiFi/GPRS/EGPRS)

All our projects on the server side are web applications. Cocoon serves
two functions:
   - as service/data provider for mobile devices. Data is exchanged via
xml. Data clients are always proprietary client applications, not browsers
   - as administration interface. Usually a web application with lots of
flowscript and CForms.

That is why in cocoon I am mainly interested in the functionality that
makes cocoon a powerful application framework.

I have also implemented some publishing projects with cocoon.
Surprisingly for me the person that wanted me to do the job found me
browsing this very list archives! I do not know if I am allowed to
disclose any details but as soon as it is possible the I will post the
livesite address.

In my private life I have a wife (for 2 years - as you see a lot
happened during last 2 years :)) and a one year old boy named
Christopher. Apart from cocoon I mostly enjoy the cinema, literature,
playing squash, inline skating and once again squash. I am also a great
fan of shooting enormous amount of pictures with my digital camera.

A very verbose not-much-to-write. Hope that haven't bored you much.

I am really honoured to be a part of community being so appreciated by 
users.

-- 
Leszek Gawron


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