What I Use
Last updated: November 2026
I pick tools that are fast, predictable and cheap to run in production. My goal on client projects is always to maximise runway and maintainability rather than pad a CV with flavour-of-the-month frameworks.
- Go (Golang): My first choice for lean, fast APIs, background services and self-contained binaries with tiny memory footprints.
- Java & Kotlin: Battle-tested workhorses for larger business systems, enterprise integrations and incremental legacy migrations.
- Python: Practical scripting, data pipelines, image analysis and glue code when speed of iteration beats raw throughput.
- Vanilla JavaScript & TypeScript: Direct DOM, HTML5 Canvas 2D, WebGL and WebGPU without multi-megabyte SPA bundles. (This entire website is hand-coded static HTML, CSS and JS with zero build step.)
- Odin & Zig: My go-to systems languages for writing compilers (WasmPascal, WasmCoffee), 60fps simulations and tiny WebAssembly modules via OdinDom, ZigDom and Batchiness.
- Object Pascal / Delphi: Over two decades of hands-on experience maintaining and migrating commercial Pascal and Delphi desktop applications to the web.
- Rust, C & Dart/Flutter: Used where the project calls for them, from CGo interop to cross-platform mobile and web experiments.
- PostgreSQL & SQLite: PostgreSQL for almost every multi-user production system; SQLite for embedded, single-node and local-first tools.
- Docker & Linux: Cloud-agnostic container deployments so you can move between DigitalOcean, Hetzner, AWS or your own hardware in an afternoon without vendor lock-in.
- Git (GitHub & GitLab): Clean commit history, automated test runs and straightforward pull requests.
- Operating Systems: macOS and Linux for daily development, plus Windows environments for legacy Delphi/Pascal and desktop testing.
- Editors & Profiling: Lightweight code editors, terminal tooling, Chrome/Firefox performance and memory profilers, and custom benchmark harnesses.
- Remote Collaboration: Slack, Zoom, Google Meet, Trello and async written updates from Cape Town (SAST / UTC+2).
Curious how these tools apply to your project? See my Services & ZAR Estimator or book a 30-min call.