User:Mark Halpern

My academic training is in English language and literature, with a BA from City College of New York, an M.A. from Columbia University, and an all-but-dissertation Ph.D from Columbia. I left academia when I discovered (a) that I hated the academic life, and (b) that there was something called computer programming. I joined IBM's Programming Research department just after it released Fortran, and spent the next thirty years or so in that discipline, later in technical writing and editing. I am the author of two published books, one on programming, the other on language usage and linguistics.

Samples of my writing on several subjects can be found on my web site, www.rules-of-the-game.com.