Foster Brereton
Research Scientist at adobe
Pasadena, California, United States
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolFoster Brereton is a research scientist and software engineer with 13 years of professional experience, currently contributing to next-generation C++ software from Pasadena. A long-time Adobe veteran and principal scientist-level engineer on core Photoshop work, he combines deep systems-level expertise with practical application development. He’s an active open-source contributor—notably improving the backend template engine of the popular HexFiend macOS hex editor to better parse complex formats like ZIP, PNG, Exif, DNG and Mach-O and to handle unusual integer sizes. Foster is skilled at modernizing legacy code and shipping durable, reusable tooling, and he brings a disciplined engineering approach shaped by a UCLA background and a fondness for the Oxford comma.
13 years of coding experience
BS, BS at University of California, Los Angeles
Stackoverflow
35,771reputation
5.9mreached
532answers
109questions
transparency
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uikit
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cocoa-touch
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xml
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Github Skills (36)
template-engine10
file-parsing10
file-format10
parsing10
file-parser10
macos10
uikit10
tcl10
iphone10
exif9
mach-o9
container9
ios9
uiimage9
objective-c9
Programming languages (12)
Github contributions (5)
HexFiend/HexFiend
Jul 2021 - Mar 2022
A fast and clever hex editor for macOS
Role in this project:
Backend Developer
Backend DeveloperContributions:11 reviews, 9 commits, 14 PRs in 8 months
Contributions summary:Foster primarily contributes to the backend of a hex editor for macOS, specifically working on the template engine. They implemented new commands like `sectionname` and `include`, improving template functionality and code reusability. The user also significantly improved the existing template system by supporting symlink traversal for template loading and adding features to the ZIP, PNG, Exif, DNG and Mach-O templates for more detailed file structure parsing. They also enhanced the codebase to handle unusual integer sizes.
hex-editormacos
binspector/binspector
Oct 2014 - May 2021
A binary format analysis tool
Contributions:86 commits, 11 PRs, 63 pushes in 6 years 7 months
binary-format
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