About me
Hello, I am Paul 👋
I live in the Norwich, UK. I have also lived in London and New Zealand.
I'm a software engineer, amateur analogue photographer, drum player, Pokemon fan, and prolific note taker.
This is my website! It is built using a hyper personal piece of software I wrote called Paulblish.
Software
I write software. Almost entirely in Python.
My favourite technology is probably HTTP. I like to explore how we use it with Hypermedia, to build brilliant web services, particularly APIs. I think HTTP is a technology that we often forget about because of too many abstractions.
When I build web applications I tend to use Django. Though I’ve also used Flask and FastAPI a fair bit too. I’ve been using React, TypeScript, and HTMX a lot on the front end recently.
My career has mostly focused on internal customer tools - the “back office” functions that aren’t always seen by the average consumer. I’ve developed a knack for befriending and building trust with internal customers and teasing requirements out of them.
I'm currently a Lead Software Engineer at Kraken Tech, the technology behind Octopus Energy and other major energy utilities.
Software projects
Hyper personal software
I build a lot of small projects for myself, tailored just for me, but open sourced in case anyone wants to copy and adapt them.
I call this type of software hyper personal software.
Clientele
Clientele is trying to re-imagine how we build API clients in Python.
My aim is to make it the most lovable API Client experience available.
You can find the project on GitHub.
PokeAPI
In 2014 I created PokeAPI to demonstrate good HTTP API design. At the time, nothing like OpenAPI existed. PokeAPI was supposed to be a "pure" HTTP API with hyperlinks to other resources.
However, it got more popular due to the subject of it's data - Pokemon. It now has well over 5 billion API calls a month. I'm not kidding! Over the years the project has gained members and we have built it in a way so that we new updates are pretty automated.
Photography
I also take photographs. I would consider myself an amateur photographer.
My avatar is shot on an analogue camera! [1]
I like to use old analog film cameras. And Toy Cameras too.
They offer an experience unlike anything we get with modern digital cameras.
I love capturing a moment, and anticipating how it’ll look when I get it developed.
Then, when I get the photos back, I get to relive that moment a second time.
I think this process creates better memories.
I don't get distracted by the digital camera by obsessing over the perfect shot.
The photos I do take have these little imperfections that make them unique and special.
👈 You can view some of my favourite photographs on this website other there 👈
I started Shoot Film Norwich recently to help build a local community of analog nerds.
Drumming
I play the drums. I have an e-kit at home.
I love music, I cannot stop listening to it. I am almost always strumming along to a beat, if I can hear one. Later in life I realised this is a "stim"[2] that I do, and I have channelled it in being a good time keeper.
Nintendo 3DS & Pokémon
I absolutely adore the Nintendo DS/3DS era of handheld consoles. I think it is probably the best handheld console of all time. That's a sentiment shared by a lot of people.
I'm also a big fan of the Pokémon series. So much so that I built an API for it that got popular.
I currently own 5 different consoles from that era. They are all different models, different software, and even some modded ones. I'll document them on here sometime.
Writing
As you see, I like to write a lot. I rarely publish what I write, though.
I’ve blogged for years. Tearing down a site when I get bored, then starting up a new one later on. The same will probably happen to this content.
I write quite frequently on my substack - mostly about film photography.
Articles on this website are more software / personal focussed.
Digital copy isn’t permanent. So I journal a lot in hand written books. I hope to one day read them back and reminisce.
I've also been writing a novel on-and-off for about a decade now. It's a cyberpunk / solarpunk / modern space age kinda thing. Maybe one day I'll chuck up some of the content on here so people can read it.