User:Poetcsw

About C. S. Wyatt
I am a freelance writer and editor, specializing in creative writing. My wife and I maintain the Tameri Guide for Writers. Words are my life, though I have dozens of additional interests. As a writer, I am passionate about poetry, dramatic writing (stage), and short stories. I like short forms because it is a challenge to say a lot with a few words.

School Daze
My scholarly interests are Rhetoric of Economics and Economics of Rhetoric. In the case of Wikis, why would someone invest capital (time, effort, knowledge) on a project that is free? What is the social capital gained? What other gains does one experiences? My Ph.D. research focused on technology and writing instruction for Neurodiverse students. I research included the role of capital requirements behind the development of physical and virtual spaces supportive of students with special needs.

In addition to the doctorate, I have an MFA in Film and Digital Technology, an M.A. in English Composition and Rhetoric, and undergraduate degrees in English and journalism.

My students worked on Wikibook projects, ideally leading to books other students can use. I think the students learn from their mistakes, especially when someone else corrects the error publicly.

Computing Background
I began programming in the late 1970s. The first computer I had at home was a Commodore VIC-20, including the loud dot-matrix printer and every peripheral available. After a list of other systems (even Sinclair and Tandy), I ended up with a great Epson PC-AT clone. That system lasted through college in the 1980s. I was a PC/Unix programmer and had a bit of everything, including numerous homebuilt PCs.

Currently, I use a MacBook Pro and no longer have the urge to build computers for friends and family. I do admit to performing surgery on my MBP and my sister's iBook to replace hard drives. There are more than 30 screws to remove in the iBook! That's not something I'd like to do more than once a year.

Languages and Tools
I started to learn programming concepts with 6502 "Smart Assembler for VIC20." The Commodore VIC20 has so little memory that a BASIC program could be too large. As a result, I learned to code reading Compute! Magazine's "ML Monitor" and the "Smart Assembler" editors. Compute! even published the complete code for a word processor, in 6502. You learn a lot reading that much code.

Lots of BASICs
Like most early home computer enthusiasts, I ended up learning a variety of BASIC dialects. These were all "line number" BASICs with GOTO and GOSUB logic required to accomplish anything meaningful. You learned quickly to number related code in groups. When I finally obtained a PC clone, I went through several BASIC compilers. QuickBASIC, and later PowerBASIC, would change how I thought about this "beginners" language. Suddenly, somewhat elegant code was possible.

Long Live Pascal!
I left BASIC for Pascal with the advent of TurboPascal. I also embraced TurboC and later the entire line of Borland compilers for Windows. I was and am a serious fan of Delphi's Object Pascal language and the incredible IDE that Borland created. Too bad Borland wasn't able to crush VisualBasic.

C, the Past and Future
In college, as a systems programmer, C and Fortran were the primary tools in our office. I also learned to work with REXX, a great scripting tool on IBM mainframes. I still think C is a thing of beauty. The great thing about C is that it is still the language of choice on Unix platforms. If you know C and Pascal, you can learn most programming languages.

Now, I am a Mac user. This means I'm trying to master Objective-C and the Xcode tools. I have managed to install FreePascal with the Xcode support, but hope to use Lazarus for Pascal coding. (Lazarus is a clone of the Delphi IDE.) I play a little with REALbasic and FutureBASIC on the Mac, too. I have a soft spot in my heart for BASIC, I guess.

In the end, C and Objective-C are the languages of choice on OS X. It is Unix, after all. That's why FutureBASIC, which is really a translator to C, holds a lot of promise. Quick coding, with the speed of C. Back the the Future.

Scripting the Days Away
Working on Web sites has meant greater and greater use of JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL. I'm fascinated by Ruby and Python, but most of the Web site applications I install and maintain are PHP or Perl-based.

No, Really, I'm a Writer
Writing is my primary occupation and avocation. Writing about technology is one of my paying gigs, so I get to combine geekdom with logophilia.