About Me

I’m Adrian Pritchard. I’ve been passionate about building software since the days of the ZX81 and Tandy TRS-80. Since 1993 I’ve been lucky enough to always find someone willing to pay me to do something that I love. From 1995 my focus has been on building web-based applications in the financial, healthcare and government sectors.

In 2003, in collaboration with an ex-colleague, I started a company that produced the UK’s first web-based ophthalmic practice management system for opticians. I was techie ‘No.1′, the person who wrote the very first line of code. As the business grew, I was faced with designing a software development process from scratch. My first instinct was to visit Amazon in the vain hope of finding a book called ‘A step by step guide to building software in a small web-based start-up, with very little money in a very small dining room…’ or something like that.

You won’t be surprised to know that I never found that book.  Over the years I’ve received help from lots of different people and places and mixed it all up with large amounts of determination, effort, caffeine and common sense; then just waited to see how things turned out. Sometimes things worked first time, at other times things took a little longer.

Life is so much easier if you can learn from other peoples’ experiences; if by reading this blog, someone can learn from mine, then I’ll feel as though I’ve helped out. Of course, building software isn’t a college course, so I’m still learning.  This blog is also a way for me to put ideas forward and ask for help and advice from time to time.