SEUL: Re: Introduction

[Rick Jones <rickya@siservices.net>]

Hello all:

I guess it's high time I introduce myself as well.

I'm new blood to the leadership of the UI along with Orn.  I actually
was given the task a week ago but never took a moment to officially
introduce myself to the project.

I am nobody special, really.  I have some, self-taught, experience in C,
C++, Java, and the old Basic.  I would not call myself a programmer be
any means.  I hope to find an interface that will allow me learn and do
at the same time since I don't have the patience to memorize a book on
it.

I sat down to a computer for the first time about 20 years ago.  It was
an old tty actually, no monitor, and could do very little on it's own,
but it was the schools computer networked to someplace, probably the
internet, and I was able to get quite a bit of information on it.  That
was it for me.

Later I messed with various comodores and atari's, where I learned old
basic.  Later I went into the Army as a Bradley mechanic.  I was
approached by a security officer while waiting for the bus to take me to
basic training and asked to switch MOS to military intelligence (I know,
a contradiction in terms).  I was in training as a multi-channel
communications intelligence analyst for about a year and sent to work on
an Army Advanced Research Projects mission wich involved a system of 3
mini-computers and a communications systems processor station, where I
was involved in developing new software for the intelligence community.

That's where I learned about the internals of software and became more
interested in computers.  My wife bought me a 286 and I ran head first
into the internet and later into Linux.

My first Linux install was a little over 3 years ago when I found
sunsite and Linux.  I struggled through putting together a working
system over about 2 months.  When I had trouble compiling things I was
going to give it all up when I found a book with a slugware 1.3 cdrom in
it.  That wasn't much better, on to slugware 2.1 from Morse comm's, who
never sent the 4th disc with the free commercial backup utility on it. 
Then I found Debian about 2 years ago.  Still use it but think there's a
serius need for something that will be useable by even my CI mother. 
She even has trouble with WinBlows.

I saw a post in Debians users list about SEUL and here I am.  I hope
that I can be a productive member of the project and intend to make
every aspect of the UI as intuitive, user-friendly, and impressive as I
can with what's out there.  I'm even thinking of blowing the dust off my
C++ manuals and writing some GUI config util's.

If anybody knows a *good* book on programming, maybe with a reference
and examples of methods in it, please let me know.  I have yet to find
one that isn't either writen in greek, as if I've been programming for a
lifetime, or all about the basics that I already know.  There never
seems to be an intermediate.

Anyway, I meant to write a blurb and now I'm at the end of a book.  Now
that you know my life's story, let's bury M$ together =)

-- 
HAGO,

Rick Jones
rickya@siservices.net