Dan Grossman

PHP Programming

I have 9 years of PHP programming experience developing a wide range of websites and applications. I have expert-level comfort with both procedural and object oriented programming, PHP's standard libraries and both small and complex projects.

My deployed PHP applications have proven secure, stable and scalable in the real world. W3Counter handles over 180 requests per second on commodity hardware. Code I wrote in 2000 is still in use by thousands of users today.

Databases

I have experience with:

• MySQL, Postgres, Oracle, SQL Server
• SQL query creation, analysis and optimization
• Stored procedures and triggers
• Database design and normalization, set-theoretic formulation, relational algebra, entity relationship diagrams, normalization and normal forms
• Designing databases for visitor tracking, conversion tracking, customer relationship management systems, ecommerce websites, online education systems, discussion boards, content management systems, surveys, and machine learning corpora
• Installing and configuring databases with optimal values for given hardware and application usage
• Automating database backups to local and remote storage
• Repairing crashed or corrupt databases and restoring from backups

Server Management and Amazon Web Services

I have hosted my own websites for the past five years and configured servers for several clients. Several of my websites run in the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud. I have experience with:

• Server setup and hardening
• Installing and configuring services and dependencies
• Compiling software from source in Linux and Windows
• Firewall configuration and brute force monitoring
• Apache installation and configuration, virtual hosts, mod_rewrite
• MySQL installation and configuration, optimization
• Creating and configuring Amazon Machine Instances (AMIs)
• Managing Amazon Web Services from the command line and from the AWS Console
• Using Amazon Elastic Block Storage, and creating virtual RAID arrays of EBS volumes
• Choosing appropriate instance types for an application need

eCommerce

I have developed and operated eCommerce sites with tens of thousands of customers since 2004. I have experience with:

• Designing and developing shopping carts and checkout flows
• Optimizing product pricing for optimizing margins/proft
• Implementing Authorize.net, PayPal, PayPal Website Payments Pro and Quantum Gateway APIs for processing payments and automating order fulfillment
• Implementing custom risk scoring and fraud management systems tailored to a specific business
• Integrating external risk scoring and fraud management systems, including MaxMind minFraud and telephone verification, into existing checkout flows
• Developing back-end account and order management systems for ecommerce store management
• Integrating coupon and discount programs into existing and custom shopping cart systems

WordPress

I have several years experience working with WordPress. WordPress powers this blog and acts as a CMS for Website Goodies. I have extensive knowledge of the WordPress API for both theme and plugin development.

I have developed a number of widely used WordPress plugins, both free open source and commercial. WP Review Site powers over 1,000 customer websites. WP Calais Auto Tagger has been downloaded over 7,000 times. Thousands have used my Zune Social plugin and DG Review Site, the predecessor to WP Review Site.

I am capable of porting any website design into a WordPress theme or converting existing web scripts into WordPress themes or plugins. I always make best practice use of the WordPress API, and never directly touch the WordPress database or core files, resulting in safe and upgrade-friendly plugins.

Symfony Framework

I used the Symfony framework in developing W3Counter and w3roi. Symfony provides an architecture and components for building complex web applications. It is behind such mainstream sites as Yahoo! Answers and Delicious with tens of millions of active users.

I have 3 years experience with developing large, scalable, multi-server production web applications using Symfony, Propel ORM and PDO.

Other Languages

• JavaScript/AJAX: Developed interaction for W3Counter, w3roi, and many other websites. Experience with YUI, Prototype, Scriptaculous, jQuery
• C#.NET: Spent 6 months working for Microsoft developing C#.NET Windows applications
• C++: Using C++ since 2002, during course work, personal work and while working for DuPont. Developed language interpreter and compiler, photorealistic ray tracing graphics engine, internationalized PDF document generation, expert system integrated with CLIPS libraries
• Python: Developed a language interpreter, and Naive Bayes text classifier (machine learning algorithm)
• Java: Extensive experience since 2005. Implemented web applications using Java STRUTS framework, a virtualization container on a virtual MIPS processor, full implementation of TCP/IP protocols on sockets, real-time communication client and server
• SQL: Expert level with SQL syntax including complex joins, subqueries, unions, conditionals, stored procedures, triggers, custom functions and database-specific extensions
• Scheme: Some experience with Scheme & LISP; implemented language interpreter