About the Author

My qualifications are informed by a lifetime of teaching, even when I didn’t realize it. I started reading at four, and by the time I was in elementary school, I was “writing” instruction manuals. I still recall the carefully illustrated guide to solving the Rubik’s Magic that I put together in fifth grade.

In high school, I taught myself to program. (Turbo Pascal was the first language beyond Basic I learned; anyone remember the book with the Porsche on the cover?) Shortly after, I began teaching the programming class to my peers. Before I graduated, I was teaching two different periods of computer classes’mostly because the actual teacher liked to drink at lunch and showed up loaded most afternoons!

Once I’d knocked out a bachelor of science degree in computer science, I worked in technology, primarily at telecoms. But I never could let go of what I loved most: I was not just a programmer...