Hello Masterminds,

I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Shannon Code. My position here at Mastercoin is an exciting one. I have been named the Developer Evangelist. In an attempt the pool resources and tighten integration within the team I am also going to be taking on many of the responsibilities we were looking for a communications director to fill. I started off my adventure here at Mastercoin as head of Security and will continue to triage security issues as they arise.

I’d like to welcome everyone to join me on Reddit today for an Ask Me Anything Session

What is a “Developer Evangelist”?
Wikipedia defines a technology evangelist (Which I’m going to use for the purpose of discussion) as a person who builds a critical mass of support for a given technology. Promoting the use of the technology through talks, blogging, user demonstrations, or the creation of small projects. I like this definition because it embodies much of what I’ll be doing with Mastercoin and the Crypto Currency  community.

Who is Shannon Code?
I’m Shannon Null Code, I’ve been a software developer since I can remember. (apparently before that too but I don’t remember) No kidding I would bang away at my IBM PC that would boot into Basic. I knew from an early age that this is exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I have worked with a number of startups over the years and excelled at the task of “Someone said this is impossible, can you take a crack at it” type tasks. At one place of employment I co-developed software that would play the game of World of Warcraft Autonomously. (Gold Farming, Power Leveling)

These positions allowed me to build up a large catalog of knowledge that many people in traditional jobs to not have the opportunity of obtaining. I also developed a love for API’s and Mashups. I really enjoyed taking a few API’s and inventing something new. As the years progressed I was introduced to the concept of Agile & Extreme programming, testing and automation. Circle all the way around back to today. I find myself telling people all the time that the secret to success it to do what you love. No seriously, it’s cliche for a reason. If you really do what you love for a living, you will love what you do.

So how about that name?
My wife and I, both lovers of technology, both in the software community agreed on the name change of code when we got married. (Later we issued this Announcement that we were pregnant in code) This was after a bunch of involvement from twitter, voting by all the members of the family (My kids came up with some cool names, notably “Maya Hacker Johnson” ) The tester / hacker in me wanted to have more fun and decided we should change our middle names also. So I became Shannon Null Code and my wife, Dawn Test Code. (Yes drop tables was a strong contender)

Moving forward
I plan on working closely with Craig Sellars, David Johnston, Judith Jakubovics, Adam Chamely & Faiz Khan to reach out and communicate with the community, to represent the users to our team and to represent the team to the community. Together we will work  to hear your needs. I will listen and ask questions. I will help with integrations, I will participate in group brainstorm sessions. I will be available to talk over the communication network of your choice. My plan largely involves helping inspire the developers who are not working with the Mastercoin Protocol. To offer them the support that they need, even if it’s not directly related to Mastercoin.  I plan on releasing tutorials and blog posts  regularly about my adventures experimenting with the technologies that Mastercoin releases along with crypto currency technology in general here: http://mastercoin.io

Follow us on Twitter, Youtube, Google+, Facebook, Reddit. IRC and any others I might not be thinking about right now. Please don’t hesitate to ask for help, ask for guidance, ask me anything.

Starting today on Reddit and continuing through the other networks as well.

(Name Change) http://www.agileconnection.com/interview/one-expert-another-dawn-and-shannon-code
(IBM Basic) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_BASIC#mediaviewer/File:IBM_BASICA.png
(Wow Bot) https://github.com/genecyber/Cerebrum