Hello, I am James Adam.

About me

I try to solve problems using simple solutions, often with software.

I run Exciting, a digital product development and prototyping studio.

I write and blog at interblah.net.

Contact

• @lazyatom on Twitter
• lazyatom on most other things.

Projects

• Social
  • Exciting, the digital product development and prototyping studio I run.
  • Go Free Range, the software company I co-founded to explore better ways of working.
  • Ruby Manor, an attempt to steer conferences away from bloat and cargo-culting.
• Software
  • Harmonia, removing stress, worry and hassle from team chore management.
  • Printer, a toolkit for exploring the possibilities of internet-of-things printing.
  • Vanilla.rb, the ‘bliki’ content system that runs interblah.net.
  • Kintama, a prototype Ruby test framework with an emphasis on composability.
  • Gem This, a very simple gem-creating tool that gets out of your way ASAP.
  • Engines, the original Rails Engines implementation.
  • Lots more on GitHub…

Conferences & Presentations

I co-organise Ruby Manor.

I’ve also spoken at a few Ruby and Rails conferences:

• Ruby Manor 2: Manor Harder – Gem That.
• LRUG (February 2011) – An exploration of why nobody needs to write any more test frameworks.
• Rails Conf 2009 – The Even-Darker Art of Rails Engines.
• Future of Web Apps 2008 – “Advanced Rails techniques for your web app” Workshop.
• @media 2008 – Rails + Django.
• Ruby Fools 2008 (Oslo) – The Dark Art of Developing Plugins.
• Ruby Fools 2008 (Copenhagen) – The Dark Art of Developing Plugins.
• Rails Conf 2007 – The Dark Art of Developing Plugins.
• QCon 2007 – Extending Rails with Plugins.
• AjaxWorld 2006 – Plugging into Rails.
• Canada on Rails 2006 – Engines: Team Development with Rails.

Background

I am from Scotland, lived and worked London for eight years, and am now living in Austin, Texas.

I’ve been using Ruby since 2002, which is a relatively long time. I love using Ruby but I try and keep my eyes open for whatever else might come along in the future.

I am very interested in exploring the emergent behaviour of simple systems. My PhD thesis explored this within the context of simulated multi-agent systems, but projects like Go Free Range and Ruby Manor can also be interpreted as explorations of the simplest systems that may yield valuable behaviour and structure.