I first caught the programming bug reading Alexander Keewatin Dewdney in his regular column in Scientific American, Computer Recreations. I would try out the algorithms in MS Basic for the Macintosh (the original, 128K, which I used up until 1989) and watch in wonder as various designs appeared (somewhat slowly, as you can imagine) on my screen.
Coding was just a hobby until sometime in the middle of my long college tenure, when I began programming visual displays for behavioral neuroscience work. Realizing I needed help with my code, I picked up Steve Mc Connell's book, Code Complete, from which I gathered that discipline could be introduced into the practice of programming. Following the references and sources in that book was my education in software engineering. Then came object orientation and the Design Patterns book, and whew!
My Favorite Toy Problem is Greg Turk's two-dimensional Turing machines (Dewdney coined them Tur Mite's), followed closely by the redoubtable Elevator Simulation.
I work for Real-time Technology Solutions, out of New York, as an automated test engineer and performance analyst.
Allan. mailto:baruz@rttsweb.com
I am a Tivotee!
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