Ian McFarland
VP Technology, Principal, Pivotal Labs, Inc.

I started working on networked Hypertext systems in 1989, working with Ted Nelson at Autodesk. I was on the launch team at HotWired, and was one of the 4 people involved in the decision that saddled the world with 468×60 banner ads for all time. (It looked nice on the page with the HotWired layout and Netscape 0.94 beta.)

After HotWired, I started a consulting company (Neo Communication) that did a lot of work for companies like IDG and Sony, and we started doing Java development in 1995. (In fact, we built the first client-server application ever built in Java, a demo applet and server, used to reserve seats for a theater presentation announcing the public release of Java at SunWorld.)

I was Java Evangelist at Symantec during the glory days of VisualCafé, and was Sr. Director of Technology at HSX.com, before returning to consulting, and later writing Mastering Tomcat Development for J. Wiley and Sons.

I joined Friendster in 2004 as employee #4, and when we got around to titles, I became their Chief Architect, only to leave when our new VP of Engineering moved us to PHP+XSL.

Since then, I’ve been at Pivotal Labs, where I’m a Principal, and VP of Technology. I’ve worked on a number of projects for high-profile clients, and designed a number of applications.

Sessions

1:50pm Thursday, 06/10/2010

Agile the Pivotal Way

General
Location: Ballroom III

Ian McFarland (Pivotal Labs, Inc.)

Average rating:

(4.59, 37 ratings)

In this presentation we'll share our insights into how to develop agile, robust, industrial strength code reliably and repeatably, through the application of our own flavor of XP-style agile development. We've been doing Agile for over 10 years, and Rails for over 4. We've delivered over 80 Rails apps to customers, and have learned a thing or two about how to do that sustainably and well. Read more.