Neil Matthew has been interested in and has
programmed computers since 1974. A mathematics graduate from the
University of Nottingham, Neil is just plain keen on programming
languages and likes to explore new ways of solving computing
problems. He's written systems to program in BCPL, FP (Functional
Programming), Lisp, Prolog, and a structured BASIC. He even wrote a
6502 microprocessor emulator to run BBC microcomputer programs on
UNIX systems. In terms of UNIX experience, Neil has used almost
every flavor since the late 1970s, including BSD UNIX, AT&T
System V, Sun Solaris, IBM AIX, many others, and of course Linux.
He can claim to have been using Linux since August 1993 when he
acquired a floppy disk distribution of Soft Landing (SLS) from
Canada, with kernel version 0.99.11. He's used Linux-based
computers for hacking C, C++, Icon, Prolog, Tcl, and Java at home
and at work.
All of Neil's "home" projects are developed using Linux. He says
Linux is much easier because it supports quite a lot of features
from other systems, so that both BSD- and System V-targeted
programs will generally compile with little or no change.
Neil is currently working as an Enterprise Architect specializing
in IT strategy at Celesio AG. He has a background in technical
consultancy, software development techniques, and quality
assurance. Neil has also programmed in C and C++ for real-time
embedded systems.
Rick Stones started programming at school (more
years ago than he cares to remember) on a 6502-powered BBC micro,
which, with the help of a few spare parts, continued to function
for the next 15 years. He graduated from Nottingham University with
a degree in Electronic Engineering, but decided software was more
fun.
Over the years he has worked for a variety of companies, from the
very small with just a dozen employees, to the very large,
including the IT services giant EDS. Along the way he has worked on
a range of projects, from real-time communications to accounting
systems, to very large help desk systems. He is currently working
as an IT architect, acting as a technical authority on various
major projects for a large pan-European company.
A bit of a programming linguist, he has programmed in various
assemblers, a rather neat proprietary telecommunications language
called SL-1, some FORTRAN, Pascal, Perl, SQL, and smidgeons of
Python and C++, as well as C. (Under duress he even admits that he
was once reasonably proficient in Visual Basic, but tries not to
advertise this aberration.)