Computer Help and Support

My background is mathematics with specialisation in mathematical statistics. But programming for the sake of programming has always been a part of my professional life.

My first language was Fortran in the late 60s...and, yeah, we wrote code on paper and some kind woman (it was always a woman at my university) punched it into cards and someone ran the cards through the computer and produced the output and the cards for us to correct. The computer room was huge (we could look through some windows, but couldn't enter it) and the computer was the size of a small bus.

Since then, I've programmed in various flavours of C, various Modulas, Pascal, Delphi 1,3 and 5 (I seem to favour the odd numbers). I've also done some programming in VAX/VMS and Bourne Shell. I've also done a fair bit of SQL programming in FoxPro and Delphi.

But most of my programming was probably done in various statistical packages. The ones I've used include GLIM, Genstat, BMDP, SPSS, SAS, Stata.

I've retired now, but the programming bug still bites. I'm working my way through a Udemy Java course and I still help former colleagues with advice on Stata (unpaid!!!).