Curriculum Vitae

Ken Manheimer is a software systems developer and coordinator with extensive experience in application and systems analysis, design, development, integration, administration, and operation.

Kenneth L. Manheimer
+1 202 525-6260
Washington, DC USA

Project Skills

Application and systems design, development, integration, and operation.

Extensive experience with solo, team, and open source community development, leadership, and client/customer liaison. Strong technical and communication skills and interests, collaborating and coordinating as a participant and/or leader.

Languages and Development Technologies

  • Contemporary systems development techniques and practices - object-oriented, event-driven, RPC, component architecture, RESTful, agile development, UML, requirements analysis, test-driven development, etc., Git and prior version control systems.
  • Extensive Python (type-structured), Lisp, Javascript software development and extensive devops shell and tiny-language (regexp, awk, sed, ...) scripting plus SSH, Ansible, Docker; SQL and non-relational database coding; some experience with Objective-C, C; interest in Go, Julia.
  • Extensive Network and Web application and infrastructure development - HTML / CSS / Javascript / DOM, React, npm; node, Cordova; Zope; Emacs; low-level sockets, CORBA (ILU), SSH; Nginx, Apache; DNS/named; Google Sites
  • Unix / Linux - Ubuntu, Gentoo, ..., MacOS, SunOS; MS Windows WSL 2 - development platform and networked systems administration and development, containers / Docker
  • Graphics editors - SVG/Inkscape, Google SketchUp, various paint and design tools.

Work Experience

SpiderOak Software Developer and DevOps

April 2012 to April 2016

I was hired to work on Python distributed service backend but filled in a need for a javascript/CSS/HTML mobile app frontend. I eventually drifted back to Python backend and system implementation and operation but did not settle in well.

Independent Consultant, Plone-based Content Management Systems

October, 2004 to 2012

Miscellaneous independent and customer projects, primarily based on Plone, and provided ZEO-based Plone host provisioning and maintenance.

  • Developed and operated several grass-roots community and a few corporate websites using Zope/Plone (see Zope / Plone) on Linux hosting services and vanilla Google Sites for simple sites.
  • Implemented and administered Linux-based project host platforms

Other Interests

Also 2004 to present

  • Continued to develop my GNU Emacs Allout extension, which I created and maintain as part of the GNU Emacs distribution.
  • Developed designs for a speculative project, Organizing Connections, aimed at organizing and extending online collaboration across various kinds of boundaries, from those of technical platforms to enterprise organizational divisions.
  • Extended my recreational  involvement in Contact Improvisation and ensemble movement improv with practice, organizing, teaching, and performance

Zope Corporation, Fredericksburg, VA

Senior Developer - January, 1999 to October, 2004

Contributed to core Zope development, Customer and community projects, and internal and community collaborative development and operational infrastructure.

Customer Projects

  • System design contributor, core developer and internal/client development teams coordinator, for a high-profile daily-news online organization's publishing workbench.  Implemented a Zope-based public chat system for client as a trial project.
  • CyberCamp - Designed, implemented, and delivered collaborative workbench for through-the-web production of elaborate online learning "adventures".
  • ZapMedia - Project manager, customer liaison, and development team member. We designed and built a public portal for a commercial dedicated multimedia delivery platform, the backend for a prospective media settop box.
  • Zope4Edu - Contributing developer for university content collaboration system. Designed and implemented RSS-based department-spanning content synchronization.
  • Zope Registration Manager - Contributing developer, designed and implemented Zope+javascript+CSS client-side validating forms infrastructure for commercial radio high-volume customer promotions registration system.

Implemented and Administered Zope Corp.'s Collaborative Development Infrastructure

Managed the collaboration infrastructure used for Zope Corp.'s internal, customer, and community projects, and developed most of the facilities on which it was based:

  • Developed and published Zope and Python debugging techniques and tools – Conversing With Zope and Emacs PDB Track.
  • Issue collector - Designed, developed, and deployed and issue tracking system, the Zope Issue Collector, used for most customer and community projects
  • Structured Wikis - Devised, implemented, and deployed Zope-based Wiki organizability enhancements, used as basis for collaboration medium in customer and community projects
  • CVS and Mailman check-in mailing lists - Organized source code collaboration facilities, including coupling with check-in mailing lists organization
  • Commissioned, administered, and developed some of the hosted Linux OS facilities on which we ran these client and community Zope and collaboration facilities.

Corporation for National Research Initiatives, Reston, VA

Member of Technical Staff - September, 1995 to January, 1999.

Participated as researcher and developer in network and programming research projects, and instituted and maintained central Python community resources.

Also responsible for initiating, maintaining, and conducting the early global Python community, establishing and running python.org and the Python Software Activity (a less formal precursor to the Python Software Foundation), and developing the Mailman mailing list manager.

Research Projects

Python and Python Community

While at CNRI I was employed to spend up to 50% of my time working on Python community resources, specifically the PSA and python.org.

  • Python Software Activity - Helped to establish and ran the PSA and python.org, including engaging and gathering grass-roots community connections with Python-invested developers and businesses and commissioning, administering, and developing the Linux host platform and Python facilities for the informal organization's Web and network services. (Easter egg: python.org humor section.)
  • GNU Mailman - Resurrected a languishing prototype and developed it to production readiness, employing it for extensive use on python.org and for a local non-technical community. Mailman was soon after adopted as the GNU mailing list manager, and has come to very widespread use throughout the world. See My Mailman Role for details.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Gaithersburg, MD

Systems Engineer, NIST Network Engineering Group - September, 1992 to September, 1995

As part of NIST's central Network Engineering Group, managed a site-wide file-sharing service and supported other network service efforts.

Systems Engineer, Factory Automation Systems Division - July, 1985 to September, 1992

  • Technical lead of systems and programming environment, directing Unix support by four-member team for the Automated Manufacturing Research Facility, growing from 4 Sun workstations to around 15 file servers and 40 to 60 researchers and over 100 Sun and assorted other Unix workstations. Developed and maintained custom operations software like The Depot and 8mmbackup
  • Hierarchical Control Systems Emulation programmer - developed factory automation measurement station logic and UI using extended finite state machine programming for emulation and control in an automated manufacturing research testbed. 
  • Devised and lead collaboration to develop a means to easily share software installations across enterprise organization and system architecture boundaries, The Depot

NIST Python Workshop, November 1994

Collaborated with Guido van Rossum and Michael McLay to organize the first python workshop in the US, ran the software management session and designed and prototyped hierarchical Python imports (packages) and proposed Python docstrings, both of which became part of Python.

Emacs Allout Text-Based Outline Manager

While at NIST I also became familiar with Unix and the GNU tools, including GNU Emacs. I developed and contributed a few Emacs extensions which have been distributed as part of Emacs since then, including Emacs Allout Outliner, which I continue to actively maintain and use.

Collaboration and Community

From serving computer users, Zope and Python online communities, and regional contact improvisation groups, to developing systems that support online cooperation, collaboration informs the way I work. I am driven to foster the benefits of collaboration by developing tools and cooperating constructively with people who are similarly motivated.

Publications

Other media presence

Education

BA, Computer Science, Hampshire College January, 1982, Concentration in computer languages

Professional Organizations

Acting nominated member of the Python Software Foundation; National Dance Education Organization Institutional Member

References available on request