I live in the state of Florida in the United States of America. I'm a retired mathematician. I worked about 40 years for the US Department of Defense. I specialized in the development of computer simulations and other analysis techniques for use in evaluating the operational effectiveness of weapons systems.

I have been using and programming computers since 1962. I started with FORTRAN on an IBM 7094. It required a very large room to contain that machine, but now my tiny mobile phone has more memory and a faster processor. The input of code and data to the 7094 was via a stack of punched cards. Output was via magnetic tape (reels about a foot in diameter), printed paper or more punched cards. Output was printed mechanically (and noisily) one line at a time. (Someone figured out how to program the lines of output such that the sound from its printing would be a familiar tune.) There were no terminals; code was written using pencil and paper and then punched into the cards using a large machine. We've come a long way since then.

Now my interest in computer software and web development is primarily as a hobby. I started working with the WordPress blog platform about four years ago. After finding that it wasn't flexible enough to suit me I set out to build my own content management system. Several months later I had a basic working platform but realized that it would take a lot more work to get where I wanted to be. It was about that time that I discovered Symphony CMS and made it my main focus.