In April 2011, Keir Whitaker joined Smashing Magazine as editor and curator of the Smashing Coding section—a new part of the magazine devoted to more in-depth articles focused on client-side and server-side programming languages, tools, frameworks and libraries, as well as back-end topics.

Keir Moving On

Unfortunately, Keir has decided with a heavy heart to pass the reins on to a new editor. Among many other projects, he has formed a new company with Elliot Jay Stocks named Viewport Industries. Nevertheless, he will remain to review articles every now and then and be a treasure among the other fantastic experts in the Smashing Magazine Experts Panel.

Introducing Kieran

I have known Keir for a few years now and we have enjoyed working together on a good number of projects. When the opportunity to take up the reins as Coding Editor first presented itself I was understandably excited and nervous at the prospect of stepping into Keir's shoes. Having often spoken with him about his editorial role, I was incredibly grateful to be considered and really keen to work with a group of people who contribute such high quality knowledge to our industry.

After my first conversation with Vitaly I was even more excited. His passion for what he does is infectious and I hope that I can bring to the team a love for the web and a real passion for the potential we have in this industry to stir things up and ignite change.

To give you a bit of background on me, I have been building websites since 1998. Starting out working for Internet Service Providers and large media companies, I worked with Perl and PHP for more than a decade. In recent years, I have developed a love for all things Ruby shaped and still spend more than my fair share of time nursing servers back to life. In late 2009, I left international magazine publisher Future Publishing where I was a Technical Lead Developer to co-found my own small development shop, 88MPH. Day to day I now specialise in working with businesses to address the challenges of running high traffic WordPress sites as well as building the occasional app with Ruby on Rails, when the need arises.

When I’m not working with clients I spend a lot of time working on side projects like OpenIndie—a theatrical distribution platform for independent film. As you can perhaps tell from that project I’m an ageing film student with a particular passion for American independent cinema and my not so guilty pleasure: the 70s/80s slasher sub-genre. So whether the subject is the your least favourite Friday the 13th sequel or WordPress caching strategies, I’m always keen to chat with like-minded folk on Twitter.