...

LAWRENCE WHITESIDE

Filmmaker

Web/Mobile App Architect

UX/UI Designer

Robots that Live in the Cloud
And Never Die or Wearout or Tire
And Cannot be stopped

A Short Film

The Making of
LawrenceWhiteside.com
Behind the Scenes

Technical

Also..
The Code
For This Site
Is Open Source
github.com/lawwantsin

Lawrence is a web and mobile app developer. He recently relocated to Portland, Oregon with dreams of a better life than he could find in New York City. Maybe just a little more space. He’s been working professionally as a Lead Developer and architect of high traffic, web sites for 6 years. He never wanted to become so well versed but he has a relentless desire for the best possible tools and high tech interfaces. This began with Rails in 2005 but over the last few years he’s gotten more involved on the front end. Javascript frameworks like jQuery, JavascriptMVC (Now CanJS) and mobile HTML5 solutions like PhoneGap and AppMobi.

His first job was imagining a skinable video platform, Head2Head. After a few years doing client work and 3 rewrites of that platform, he moved on to co-found spins.fm, a skinable facebook app for Musicians. His main project this past year has been skinable portfolio sites for artists, filmmakers and actors with the Cinema Set Free collective, which he founded. He’s been involved in mobile apps for personal training, dance studios and filmmakers. He builds interfaces without any plugins or CMS's, believes the best interfaces come from this custom process. Detests plugins and outside APIs for what they hide about the language from the developer. He think DHH is past his prime and isn't dogmatic about anything. The best technologies are those that have been hard won. He usually never speaks about himself in the 3rd person but for some reason, can’t stop. So he should stop.

Brief History

Preferred APIs

If you think about it, everything is an interface. Application Programming Interfaces are a means to access something another programmer has written. Even Ruby classes have getters and setters. In that spirit, I present my favorite API's. The best of the new web. Emphasizing front-end development, these API's are frameworks for creating custom interaction. Everything I do is custom to the needs of a given project. I never use an API that's made to simplify or homogenize interaction. Plugins only serve to hide the language. I want to push features every day I go to work, not learn someone else's shrink-wrapped solution.

I have however found a few companies I turn to because of the benefit they give my sites. Samurai takes care of credit transactions and I built the subscription code. They charge a small per use fee and I get to focus on only the business of my app. API's that provide a way to organize code and those that provide access to a wealth of data are alright by me. API's that give you functionality for free always end up costing you more than they save.

Webography

I don't care to stay on the internet any longer than I have to. I have found a few sites provide a good way to journal and create in unstructured ways. They become art by accumulation. I don't really twitter post and I certainly never tweet but oddly I do enjoy micro-blogging. If you'd like to Google me, watch my films, read a screenplay I've written, look at photos I've taken. Spins.FM and Cinema Set Free are my 2 major projects these days and I have a few iPhone apps in the App Store. None of these links, I’m particularly proud of. I think the web site you're on right now is pretty cool. I haven’t built a site for myself since 2006. I've also never heard of anyone ever getting a job from their Linked In profile, have you? Anyway, I invite you to peruse my other sites.