Talking to founder Jonathan Hussey

Hello and welcome to the first Hussey Coding blog of 2020!

Normally this would be cause enough for celebration but it just so happens that today we have two things to celebrate! Not only is this our very first blog of the new decade but it is also
our 100th blog to be published!!

So to celebrate these amazing instances I thought it would be fun to sit down with the founder of Hussey Coding and Developer Connection, Mr. Jonathan Hussey and have a little chat, find out what makes him tick, his background in development and what inspires him, with some fun random stuff thrown in for good measure. So sit back and enjoy my conversation with Jon Hussy.

Hi Jon, thanks for sitting and chatting with me for a while today, let's start off nice and easy, tell us a little about yourself?

Yeah sure, I'm originally from London but moved to South Wales (UK) about 10 years ago where I founded Hussey Coding. I love living here, I have mountains and running trails right on my door step which is a very welcome change to the flatness and busyness of the London life I lived before.

Before we get into work and what lead to Hussey Coding could you tell us about some of your interests outside of the work place?

I love to get outdoors and have a big interest in running. I've been running for around 7 to 8 years now and in the last couple of years I've switched from road running to just trail running, with as many hills as possible haha. I'm also part of the local running group that meets up to run once a week.

Another passion of mine is baking, particularly bread. I can often be found at the weekends with a starter from the night or bake before attempting to perfect the ultimate traditional baguette or even just baking a couple of normal tinned loaves which are always so much better than shop bought.

Outside of that I also love a bit of DIY and do all kinds of things, most recently refitting the office with new desks and storage, which having a background in video engineering is useful when it comes to cable management so things look quite neat as well, if I do say so myself.

So what is it that inspired you to peruse a career in coding? Was it something you always wanted to do or something you fell into?

My first real memory of first sitting down to code something 'real' was when my Dad ran a web development company for a time, This was back in the early days of the internet, around the mid 90's maybe, when totally static pages with table layout HTML and CSS was about all you needed to worry about.

Everything was very much in it's infancy and I remember sitting down for hours on end building HTML pages, all with uppercase tags of course.

Courses like computer science with any kind of web development focus didn't really exist at the time but later in university there were a few chances to code and so I remember getting really quite into languages like C++, assembly code and visual basic. Often on a night when I decided not to go out you could find me huddled round a computer screen adding just a bit more to that small project I started in class that I didn't need to work on but just wanted to see if I could make this 'extra thing' work. I actually ended up helping my class mates get to grips with language since I had spent so long working with it outside of the classroom, I think I even have my old 'Learn C++ in 20 days' book that I bought back then.

After University I actually went into the post production industry in London where I began to learn PHP in my own time, adding to my knowledge of HTML, CSS and Java Script that I already had. At work I was a post production engineer and later became an imaging engineer where I still found time to code, I did things like building a flash video player in actionscript so that clients could view their rushes for that days work or creating a bash script to automatically analyse and detect monitor calibration profiles that needed to be updated or deleted.

OK, so you're in London working post production on blockbuster movies and making a decent wage I'd imagine; how does Hussey Coding come about from there?

After about 7 or 8 years working in London I was just ready to leave, by this point I'd met a nice girl and we got married and moved to South Wales and I started freelancing as a PHP web developer under the name of Hussey Coding after not really being able to find any work that matched my specific skills set in the local area and a while later I started a limited company which, almost 10 years later, is where we are today.

 
What would you say are some of your favourite things are about what you do?

I always enjoy the coding, that's always a given, delivering a well executed code to a client is an extremely satisfying end to a task or project. I really like making new working relationships with clients and also doing all I can to keep my developers happy. I'm a pretty laid back kinda guy and I try to make that the general feel of the company - my default is to trust that someone will be able to do something they say they can, will do it to the best of their ability and do it in good time. I don't micro-manage any of the team, I know that for me it doesn't help for productivity. I like to try and make a good working atmosphere for everyone and I'm always there if they have any questions, in my experience this makes for good productivity and good, high quality results.

 and what about some of your least favourite things?

 

So every now and then you inevitably come across a real 'down the rabbit hole' issue that can really take some solving. I enjoy finally completing these kinds of tasks but they can be tough to work on sometimes.

If you had to sell Hussey Coding to me in just one sentence, what would it be?

We offer reliable, expert Magento development services delivered to spec on time 

So for those people reading this who maybe don't know, Hussey Coding is a Magento specific development company meaning you work exclusively on Magento projects. Same question about Magento, if you only had one sentence to sell Magento to me, what would it sound like?

It's not just eCommerce store software, it's a fully fledged MVC framework in

it's own right which makes it infinitely versatile to the needs of any store owner.

Great, thank you for that, I do have one fun thing left for us to do but before we do that is there anything you would like to add?

Ummm yeah, one train leaves a station heading due west, Two hours later a second train leaves the same station heading due east. The second train is travelling at 15mi/h faster that the first. How long will it be before they meet?

... right, ok, well readers, answers in the comments please!
Now then, we have arrived at my favourite part, the quick fire round! It's really simple, all you need to do is answer 10 questions as quickly as you can, don't think too much just say what ever comes into your head. Here we go ...
What is your favourite food?

  Bread

If you could holiday anywhere, where would it be?

 Majorca

 What is your least favourite time of day?

 Must be when I'm asleep because otherwise I don't know

 What is your favourite quote?

 If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself - Albert Einstein

How long can you hold your breath?

   Just sitting here? About 1 minute 30 seconds

Tea or Coffee?

Tea

What was the last song you listened to?

  Deadmau5 - Polaris

  Who would play you in the movie about your life?

  Probably my grandson to be ... or Hulk Hogan

 If you had one superpower, what would it be?

 Infinite ice-cream

 How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

 If it's just me, about 15 mins, if I need to get my daughter ready as well, at least 3 hours.

Alright, well that brings us to the end of our little chat today, thanks for sitting with me and doing this and thank you to all our readers for joining us today for our special 100th blog! We hope you've enjoyed this little break from the norm.

Don't forget to put your answers to the train question in the comments section below or join us on our various social media profiles or sign up to our brand new NEWSLETTER for all the latest updates and content from Hussey Coding and developerconnection.co.uk, the new Magento project marketplace where developers and store owners are free to work as they like, pay 0% extra and can build long lasting professional relationships.

Thank you again readers, your support means a lot to us, so until next time, stay safe and have a great day!

Want to contact Hussey Coding? here's how
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