Steph graduated from The College of William and Mary in 1988 with a B.S. in Computer Science. She joined IBM® in Menlo Park, California as a technical writer for a bleeding-edge knowledge engineering tool. One of her fondest IBM memories was a 3-month assignment at IBM's Place Vendome research center. She lived with a Parisian family, massacred the French language, and enjoyed the bundance of French national holidays and restaurants.
After working as an editor for several programming languages, Steph helped create the VisualAge Developer Domain Web site, which was an early precursor to what is now the developerWorks Web site. She was the founding managing editor and content lead for WebSphere® Developer Domain, and helped define its architecture and publishing model. With the transition to developerWorks, Steph has helped combine site taxonomies and architectures, and now manages the product taxonomies for the site. Her pet peeve is duplication of effort, and paying people to do what computers can automate. She works with teams across IBM to bring a more seamless user experience to our Web visitors.
In her off hours, Steph's books and articles strive to explain IBM development tools to a
beginner audience, to "educate the masses" on the basics of Java™ programming and
Web Services development. She has authored a series of books on visual programming.
She has also written several tutorials and articles for
developerWorks WebSphere and
Java Developer's Journal.
Steph works from her home in Lexington, Kentucky, where she tries to keep up with her two sons
Calvin (10), and Samuel (7). Her family spends time biking, hiking, drawing Pokemon comics,
and dissecting frogs and fish caught in Papa's creek. She indulges in creative writing as
much as possible, and works with the writing program at her sons' school. Her
long-suffering husband, kids, and cats have to endure her attempts to play passable
Bluegrass music on the fiddle and mandolin. She's in the middle of a years-long
project with her father to canoe the Elkhorn Creek from its source to where it meets the Kentucky River (just shy of 100 miles).
This book shows you how easy it is to create and use Web Services with IBM Rational
Application Developer or Web Developer, and WebSphere Application Server.
Intended for novice to intermediate Java programmers, Developing Web Services for
Web Applications teaches users how to create Web Services, deploy Web Services to a
server, and create client applications that use Web Services. Each chapter of the book
teaches a key Web Service concept and takes you on a detailed, guided tour for creating
or using a particular Web Service. Even if you're completely new to Web Services, by the
time you finish the lessons in this book, you'll have all the skills needed to create useful
Java programs with Web Services.
This book excerpt uses Rational Developer to create a simple Web service, and a Web
application that uses the Web service. It also explains basic Web services terminology
and concepts, and shows how to run the Web service and application with WebSphere Application
Server.
The latest advances in Java technology have significantly reduced the complexity
in developing Java applications and making them accessible across the enterprise.
IBM Rational has incorporated many of these advances into its latest product offerings,
opening the Java door to many more development professionals. This article highlights
Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software and how it makes Java
and J2EE development easier.
From The Rational Edge: IBM Rational Developer is an IDE that speeds the creation of Java and J2EE applications in numerous ways for both novice and experienced developers. The article focuses on how this rapid application development tool can support organizations making the transition to an On Demand IT model.
This book walks you through developing applications using WebSphere
Studio and JavaBeans. It takes you step-by-step through learning how to use
the Visual Editor for Java with WebSphere Studio 5.0. Whether you're new
to Java or an old pro, you'll see how the Visual Editor makes development of
Java applications easier and faster. In the simplest way possible, you'll learn
reusable programming concepts, not just the product.
Create Java programs, without writing code! This book takes you step-by-step through
creating Java applications visually with IBM's VisualAge for Java product. Visual
programming lets you build applications from parts, using a palette of tools that are similar
to popular drawing programs.
Jakob Nielson's weekly column is chock-full of specific, detailed recommendations
for designing Web sites. It's the "must-see" Web site for all Web usability designers.
Subtitled Designing Large-Scale Web Sites, this is one of the few books I've found
specifically about Web information architecture. It tackles the mounting problem of Web
search and navigation, and gives practical advice for managing large information architecture.
If you're a typical software engineer, your writing skills probably need more help than
your tech skills (you know who you are!). Written by some of my colleagues at IBM's
Silicon Valley Lab, this book lays down the fundamentals of good technical writing.
It's loaded with real-world examples (writing makeovers) that can help anyone sharpen
their writing technique.
This book encapsulates the major design patterns found in designing Web applications.
It takes you from your business problem and leads you through discovering the applicable
business, integration, and application patterns. You can use the companion Web site,
Pattern Solutions, to drill down to the specific product configuration.
Roland's articles on JSF continue to be very popular. His initial JSF tutorials still set a good foundation for using the Rational Developer products. They got me up and running with JSF very quickly.
This book is ideal for any mother struggling with career, child rearing, and spiritual
development. The author gives practical advice without being too preachy.
Turn off your computer and immerse yourself in pure literary excess. This is my favorite
book of all time, combining a literary mystery with some post-modern twists.
I read this at a too tender of an age and was lured into the twisted world of programming. Somehow it never turned out as exciting as the book, but it's a thumping good read.
Set in pre-World War II Alexandria, Egypt, this book is actually four small novels, each telling the same events from a different perspective. The writing is so lush and evocative that the effect can be dizzying.
Fantastic, very complete anthology of Kentucky fiddle tunes, along with description of how the author collected them, and bios of some of the original artists. Be warned though, the keys require some odd tunings.
