Robert Braddock

Electronic Publishing Specialist, UNIX/RDBMS Administrator: ASM International

• Assumed administration of Solaris server, with Xyvision's Parlance Document Manager running on Informix Dynamic Server. Installed a variety of freely available tools and libraries to improve the operating environment from the rather bare vendor-supplied setup.
• Learned to use and apply OmniMark processor quickly and effectively, with no collateral damage to data. Integrated OmniMark processing model into Perl SGML scripts (see SGML::ElementMap).
• Developed and implemented Perl and OmniMark transformation scripts to prepare Handbook articles for DynaText publishing by vendor.
• Developed and implemented Perl and OmniMark transformation scripts for HTML publishing, including equations, figures, TOCs, tables, generated text and numbering, and external and internal cross linking. Reliably converts full Handbook set without intervention, and includes several formatting behavior choices as well as two separate output formats.
• Prototyped sample Perl transformation procedure for TeX formatting SGML Handbook articles, including rendering complex halign constructed ruled tables and math.
• Developed automated data extraction, indexing, and checking/correction utilities for the Handbook articles and for scanned graphics.
• Documented, organized, and refactored software, keeping good full life-cycle support, including automatic packaging and testing procedures. Maintained additional project status and organizational documentation to ease the transition for my eventual replacement. This included automatic updating of formatted and cross-linked reference information, categorized progress tracking, version control and segregation of deployed and unstable environments.
• Developed DTD documentation system combining structural doctype encoding with textual description, including transformation to cross-linked HTML reference views with a textual content model description and to standard SGML DTDs (documentation DTD was self-hosting). Developed procedures to import and join existing ASM Handbook Article DTD (approx. 120 elements) and documentation, and wrote documentation for the DTD documentation in itself. Wrote FOSI for formatted editing of documentation with AdeptEditor.
• Implemented client/server tools using Python and the wxWindows GUI library, producing windows-native clients for UNIX based tools. Later (after installing Apache for HTML development), replaced several Python tools with CGI based web interfaces.
• Made C++ source modifications to the SP (now OpenSP) SGML parsing library and corrected shared library build problems under the Solaris environment. Changes contributed back to the OpenSP project.
• Worked extensively with non-technical people, providing explanations at each user's desired detail level of topics ranging from the highly technical to general consulting. Kept users informed of system reliability, necessary workarounds, and problematic actions. Documented procedures for easier independent reference.
• Prototyped conversions from MSWord manuscripts and Ventura Publisher coded MSWord documents to Handbook SGML article documents, extracting structural information as well as to-be-generated numbering and cross links, and picking up external graphics and support files needing system ID assignments and inclusion into general storage and other managing processes.
• Performed software upgrades for Solaris and Informix Dynamic Server. Also performed hardware modifications and revitalized previously defunct Sun server and Sun Storage Array.
• Designed and implemented backup procedures for database data and system files, including off-site rotations, automated backups, and much needed drive wear reductions.
• Migrated UNIX server network file sharing from existing combined NFS and Netware setup to direct SMB sharing (Samba on Solaris), eliminating a significant source of department-wide down time.
• Assumed responsibility for previous vendor supplied scripts in Perl 4 and AWK, including maintenance and new feature integration.
• Assisted IT department with Windows 98 and NT use and configuration, including nearby user troubleshooting.
• Participated in proofing process for Handbook article legacy conversions, using AdeptEditor and PDM system as end user.
• Developed workarounds for limitations in user tools (primarily in AdeptEditor and Parlance Document Manager).
• Learned and used AdeptEditor scripting language to provide in-editor support for remote (UNIX) data and tools.