A programming dinosaur, moved over to open source about ten years ago and falling in love with programming again. Perl and C++ give me programming goose bumps.

I came from deep within the dark side, DOS on a System 360/50. Along the way doing application work on about everything in COBOL and a lot of assembler stuff and OS support and tuning (VTAM, CICS, VSAM, etc.) on the DOS family up through VSE/ESA on multiple CPU ES9000 stuff. A little bit of RPG work which I truly detest to this very day.

Also worked on Burroughs small, medium (where COBOL IS machine language), and large systems. NCP, BPL (like anyone knows what that is), DMSII, WFL, and some newp (like anyone really knows what that is) work. How far back? Well, there was this B4708 with real core for memory in Kansas City...

My favorite programming book? I'd have to say, "Beyond the C++ Standard Library," by Karlsson. For some reason it really made me think about the object oriented world somehow differently and I'm not sure why.

My hero? Ken Orr. I like his books and use his methodologies to this day. I think in Warnier-Orr charts.

Most asked question? Why did it take you so long to move to the open source world? Simple - as a dinosaur with a family way back then if you wanted to feed your kids you worked on big iron, period.