Aleksey Bobkov

I’m a web designer, UI designer, and I’m not afraid to say – a great application developer. I also write articles on these topics for Web Application Mania.

I have been developing applications for almost 10 years. During this period I came to the conclusion that simplicity is the major and most underestimated aspect of modern software.

While most developers try to implement as many functions as possible in one application, I build easy to use and accessible applications.

I’m a follower of 37 Signals approach to application development as described in the book Getting Real. I’m trying to apply the concept of simplicity in every aspect of the applications I develop from the code and database structure to a user interface.

My skills include the following:

• HTML and CSS. I produce valid and semantically correct code even for back-end user interface.
• JavaScript. For Java Script I prefer MooTools library because of its lightness and cross-browser nature.
• PHP. It is lightweight, cross-platform and fast. I respect Ruby on Rails a lot but I have not used it for production.
• SQL. For web applications I prefer MySQL.

For graphics I use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.

Projects

I have produced a number of applications for collaboration work, for time tracking, project management, file sharing and other tasks. I have been a senior developer at WebAsyst for several years. In the beginning of 2007 I left the WebAsyst team and established the Bahmboo project.

Web Application Mania

My most recent project is Web Application Mania - the community website for web developers.

Recently I joined with Limewheel Creative Inc. and now Bahmboo is being developed under this company.

Bahmboo

Bahmboo is a Content Management System. It is still in development but we hope to release the first public version soon. We call Bahmboo The Natural CMS due to a number of unique qualities it has. Designers are not forced to learn any new language or templating engine concepts before they can start building websites with Bahmboo. They can jump right into the system and build any website they desire without being held back by the CMS. This makes learning process and the workflow natural.

Where I am from

I live on Sakhalin Island, Russia. During my lifetime I have lived and worked in other cities in Russia. After living in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg and I found that Sakhalin is the most suitable place of living for me in Russia. Recent oil projects located on Sakhalin attract investments and the attention of the world society is what makes Sakhalin one of the most developed regions of Russia. On the other hand Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the capital of Sakhalin remains a small, clean and calm town.

All photos presented on my website were made and kindly provided by my beloved wife Nastia Tikk.

Links

• www.456bereastreet.com - my source of accessibility and usability articles.
• veerle.duoh.com - personal blog of Veerle Pieters. Verlee was the first person I heard about the web standards from. Also she taught me a lot of tricks about XHTML, CSS and Adobe Illustrator.
• www.alistapart.com – great articles about almost any aspect of web design science.
• www.bahmboo.com – Bahmboo home.
• www.limewheel.com – Limewheel Creative Inc. home.
• www.improvingtheweb.com – the weblog of Limewheel Creative Inc.
• www.halarewich.com – personal website of my business partner, Danny Halarewich.

Recent Posts

• Subversion client for Mac OS17 June 2008
• Java Script form handler class. Part 1: processing hot keys.S22 June 2008