Hi, I’m Alex.

I’m a software developer at Wellcome Collection, a free museum and library in London. I help to search and store the collections, with a particular interest in digital preservation.

I have a fairly active online presence – I tweet a lot, and my blog is where I share ideas that don’t fit into a tweet. You can read my posts on the web, or subscribe to them as an RSS feed.

I write about anything I find interesting or fun – there’s plenty of programming, but lots of other stuff too. Past topics include accessibility, Chinese dictionaries, and Welsh waterfalls.

If you’d like to see everything I’ve been up to, my projects page is a good starting point. It includes links to everything I’ve published online.

I’m trans, genderfluid, and my pronouns vary. If you’re not sure, “they/them” is a safe default.

I hope you enjoy the site.

Blog posts

Here are some posts I’ve written recently:

• 

  How to customise the title of Buildkite builds triggered from GitHub deployments

  Getting a more descriptive build label than ‘Deployment’. August 2022.

• 

  Our Place in Space

  You don’t realise how big the solar system is until you’ve walked the length of it. August 2022.

• 

  Cut the cutesy errors

  If your app has just ruined my day, I need help, not humour. August 2022.

• 

  A surprise smattering of stardom

  My last post was surprisingly popular; a few reflections on the experience. August 2022.

You can see more of my blog posts, or subscribe to the RSS feed.

Contact

You can email me at alex@alexwlchan.net, or I’m @alexwlchan on Twitter.

For anything related to Wellcome, email a.chan@wellcome.org.

If you enjoy what I write, perhaps say thanks?