Neil Matthew has been interested in and has
programmed computers since 1974. Amathematics 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.
Neil 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.
Most of Neil's "home" projects were originally developed using SCO
UNIX, but they've all 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 1980s, Neil programmed in C and C++ for
real-time embedded systems. Since then he's worked on software
development techniques and quality assurance. After a spell as a
consultant with Scientific Generics he is currently working as a
systems architect with Celesio AG.
Neil is married to Christine and has two children, Alexandra and
Adrian. He lives in a converted barn in Northamptonshire, England.
His interests include solving puzzles by computer, music, science
fiction, squash, mountain biking, and not doing it yourself.
Rick Stones 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, very large help desk systems, and more recently as the
technical authority on a large EPoS and retail central systems
program.
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.)
Rick lives in a village in Leicestershire, England, with his wife
Ann, children Jennifer and Andrew, and two cats. Outside work his
main interest is classical music, especially early religious music,
and he even does his best to find time for some piano practice. He
is currently trying to learn to speak German.