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 (Function
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 Version 6, including Xenix, SCO flavors, Ultrix, BSD 4.2,
Microport, System V, SunOS 4, Solaris and, of course, Linux. He''s
been a UNIX system administrator on-and-off since 1983. Neil is
familiar with the internals of UNIX-like systems and was involved
in the design and implementation of a intelligent communications
controller for DEC Ultrix.
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 and Tcl, at home and at
work. He also uses and recommends Linux for Internet connections,
usua lly as a proxy caching server for Windows LANs and also as a
file server to Windows 3.11/95 using SAMBA. He''s sold a number of
Internet firewall systems to UK companies (including Wrox!).
Most of Neil''s ''home'' projects were originally implemented in
SCO UNIX, but they''ve been ported to Linux with little or no
trouble. 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.
As the head of software and principal engineer at Camtec
Electronics in the Eighties, Neil programmed in C and C++ for
real-time embedded systems environments. Since then, he''s worked
on software development techniques and quality assurance both as a
consultant in communications software development with Scientific
Generics and as a software QA specialist for GEHE UK.
Richard Stones started programming at school,
more years ago than he cares to remember, on a BBC micro, which
with the help a few spare parts continued functioning for the next
15 years. He graduated from the University of Nottingham with an
Electronic Engineering degree, by which time he had decided that
software was more fun than hardware.
Over the years he has worked for a variety of companies, from the
very small with just a few dozen employees, to multinationals,
including the IT services giant EDS. Along the way he has worked on
a wide range of different projects, from embedded real-time
communications systems, through accounting systems, to large help
desk systems with multi-gigabyte databases. Many of these projects
have either been hosted on UNIX, or UNIX was the development
environment. On one project the entire embedded software was
developed and tested on Linux, and only ported to the target
hardware and minimal real-time executive in the final stages. He is
currently employed by the IT department of a pan-European wholesale
and distribution company as a systems architect.
Rick's first experience of a UNIX style operating system was on a
PDP 11/23+, after which BSD4.2 on a VAX came as a pleasant
improvement. After spells using UNIX System V.2, Xenix, SCO UNIX,
AIX and a few others, he first met Linux back in the kernel .99
days, and has been a fan ever since.
A bit of a programming linguist, he has programmed systems in
SL-1, a couple of assemblers, Fortran, Pascal, C, C++, Java, SQL
and Perl. Under pressure he has also been known to admit to some
familiarity with Visual Basic, but tries not to advertise this
aberration.
Finally, both authors were co-authors of Instant UNIX
(Wrox Press).