James Bennett

Current

• Member at Python Software Foundation
• Member at Django Software Foundation
• Release Manager at Django

• Web developer at Lawrence Journal-World

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Past

• Author at Apress
• Freelance web developer (Self-employed)

Education

• Roanoke College

Connections

92 connections

Industry

Internet

Websites

• The B-List
• Django
• Lawrence Journal-World

James Bennett’s Summary

I'm a web developer.

I've worked freelance and full-time, back-end and front-end, in a variety of languages. I've worked with turnkey systems, I've customized off-the-shelf software and I've developed new applications, both from scratch and with the help of rapid development frameworks.

I'm passionate about good, open-source tools and committed both to them and their communities; I'm active in a number of open-source user groups, I regularly attend and speak at conferences dedicated to specific tools I use (the Python programming language and Django web application framework), I've written books and magazine articles covering popular tools and I'm a voting member of two non-profit foundations dedicated to furthering open-source projects.

James Bennett’s Specialties:

Server-side technology: Python, Django, Ellington, web frameworks

Client-side technology: HTML/XHTML, CSS, JavaScript

General: software documentation, open-source software

James Bennett’s Experience

• Member

  Python Software Foundation

  (Internet industry)

  2009 — Present (less than a year)

• Member

  Django Software Foundation

  (Internet industry)

  2008 — Present (1 year )

• Release Manager

  Django

  (Non-Profit; Computer Software industry)

  January 2007 — Present (2 years 11 months)

  Release manager for the Django web-application framework; I coordinate with the rest of the development team on planning and packaging our new releases, and coordinate and maintain legacy support for older releases.

• Web developer

  Lawrence Journal-World

  (Internet industry)

  February 2006 — Present (3 years 10 months)

  I do both front-end (mostly JavaScript) and back-end (Python, using the Django web-application framework) for the various properties we manage at the Journal-World, including award-winning sites like ljworld.com, kusports.com and lawrence.com. I also help to develop our news-oriented CMS -- Ellington -- and develop new features and applications for use both by internal projects and external clients.

• Author

  Apress

  (Internet industry)

  2007 — 2009 (2 years )

  Author of two editions of "Practical Django Projects", an intermediate-level technical book introducing web application development using the open-source Django framework.

• Freelance web developer

  Self-employed

  (Self-Employed; Myself Only; Internet industry)

  September 2004 — December 2005 (1 year 4 months)

  I did back-end and front-end development work for a variety of clients, mostly implementing sites using PHP and the Textpattern CMS, or Perl and the Scoop collaborative media framework. Notable clients included Washington and Lee University and Josh Marshall's TPMCafe.com, a major collaborative political discussion and weblogging site.

James Bennett’s Education

• Roanoke College

  BA , Philosophy , 1999 — 2003

  Activities and Societies:

  Theta Alpha Kappa, Phi Beta Kappa Club, VFIC Ethics team, College Bowl

Additional Information

James Bennett’s Websites:

• The B-List
• Django
• Lawrence Journal-World