My name is Gary Ewan Park and I work as a Principal Software Developer at Chocolatey Software, Inc., up here in Aberdeen. If you want to get in touch, there are social links at the bottom of this page, as well as a contact form.
I first started coding at University — well, I say coding, but what I mean of course is MATLAB — and at my first job I started using the wonderful VB6. As time progressed I moved onto VB.Net in Visual Studio 2003, and when I started using Visual Studio 2005 I switched to C#. That wasn't because I didn't “like” VB.Net, but as I got into Web Forms development I saw a lot of syntax similarities between C# and JavaScript, and it seemed to make more sense to use C#. These days I'm happy to converse in either. As I'm always saying, it doesn't matter about the syntax of the language — it's an understanding of the framework, and what you're trying to achieve, that matters.
I graduated from the University of Aberdeen with a First Class Honours degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering. Looking back, a Computer Science degree might have served me better — but knowing the hardware side helps you understand what the software is trying to control.
In addition to coding, I love automating things. Especially automated deployment of code and infrastructure. Automate all the things!
For my sins, I'm a self-confessed Microsoft fan boy. I think the .NET platform is a great thing to build on, and I really can't get enough of it. I'm always happy to talk at length about anything geek-related, so if you have questions, feel free to get in touch.
Outside of work I like running on a semi-regular basis. I used to be an archer at University too, though I haven't done any since graduating — something I'd like to get back into.
On 1st July 2017 I was awarded a Microsoft MVP award, and I'm happy to say I've been re-awarded every year since. On 12th March 2021 I was awarded a GitHub Star.