Michael Hentges

This blog is what happens when a CTO “retires.”

I’ve spent most of my career as a system integrator in the Contact Center world. I’m currently open for part-time contract work and am otherwise learning a bunch of new technologies, spending quality time with the family, or diving into an eclectic set of hobbies!

Things on my learning list right now include:

• Rust - I first learned to program in C, graduated to C++, taught these languages, and built several applications on Unix, Windows, and macOS. Eventually, I moved on to Java development - the mainstay of the business world. Rust has captured my imagination, and the old “Unix/C hack” in me appreciates what you can do with it!

• Go - Another compiled language! I view Go as an improved version of Java - especially for multi-threaded application development. I like its simplicity and that it compiles down to a single executable with all its dependencies (no more Classpath or tomcat/lib directories!!!).

• Cloud Architecture - Contact Center technology has historically followed mainstream IT technology by about five years - which means that moving the contact center to the cloud was just starting about the time I left full-time work. I’ve been diving more deeply into cloud architecture, Terraform, Serverless, and generally catching up with the rest of the IT world.

• HTML/CSS/Javascript - building a blog site has finally caused me to wade into core website development. I’ve known about and understand how these technologies work - but until now, I haven’t had to use them to build something substantial.