Alfred C Thompson II
Educator, Author, Speaker, Software Developer
Who am I? The Alfred FAQ
Why are you writing an
FAQ?
Mostly just for the fun of it. There are questions that I get asked
fairly often either in presentations I give, talks with people at
conferences or email or instant messenger conversations. I just thought
I’d write some of them out for my own amusement. Once done, why not post
it?
What did you really do
at Microsoft?
My job was to work with K-12 (which means mostly high school)
computer science teachers on curriculum issues related to Microsoft
products. I maintained a
blog
with helpful information for teachers, spoke at conferences, gave
training at various times and places, reviewed and helped develop
curriculum resources, answer questions via email, IM and phone, and
generally tried to make myself useful. I was also an advocate for
educators to Microsoft. I spent a good bit of time talking to people in
development groups about ways they can add features to products,
especially Visual Studio, to help teachers teach better.
Have you ever met Bill
Gates?
I met Bill Gates once. I was part of a small group of people who
meet with him to review some tools related to CS education. He sat next
to me while I demonstrated some software. It was a very interesting
experience.
Have you even been to
Bill Gates’ house?
I have seen his house from the water on a couple of dinner cruises
but I have never been invited to his house.
Have you ever met any
other famous computer people?
I have met Ray Ozzie (MSFT Chief Software Architect for a while), Steve Ballmer,
Jim Miller, Jim Grey, Tony Hoare and Robert Scoble all of Microsoft at
the time I met them. I was able to meet Grace Hopper who is my personal
hero in the industry several times. I also met
Ken Olsen (founder of Digital Equipment) once.
What do you think of
LINUX?
I think it is great that there is an operating system like LINUX
available for people to play with, view the source code of, and
generally use as a learning tool. I would not want to have to use it on
a regular basis though. I have used various forms of UNIX off and on for
over 30 years and never been favorably impressed with its usability. If
I want to use an old fashioned operating system I have an account on a
VMS system.
What is your favorite
programming language?
What day is it? Seriously though I have used various forms of BASIC
to write programs for fun and profit for close to 35 years. Visual Basic
2005 is currently my language of choice for most programming I do. But I
really like C# as well. So C# gets used by me quite a bit when I work on
projects with people who like their languages to have curly braces and
semi-colons. Or just when I want do things a little differently.
What other programming
languages do you know?
FORTRAN, COBOL, DIBOL, PASCAL, C, C++, Java, and J# are all
languages I have either programmed in professionally or taught or both.
I’ve also picked up bits of a bunch of others. You can’t be in the
computer business for over 30 years and not pick up a few languages. To
be honest I can't remember all the
languages
I have toyed with. It never stops. Lately I’ve been playing with
Python a little as well as some Scheme. I’ve programmed in over half
dozen assembly languages over the years (for 12, 16, 32 and 36 bit
processors and various operating systems) but never get really good at
any of them.
Why don't you build your
own computers from parts?
To start off, I got tired of installing hardware back in the early
80s and pretty much just buy a new computer when one dies. Back in those
days a software installation meant knowing a good bit about hardware.
You had to know lots of details about the hard drives just to format it
correctly. You had to do the format as part of the installation. Testing
the installation usually meant that you had to connect some additional
hardware, usually terminals but sometimes printers, to connections that
were not so obvious and simple as today's connections. I used to help
configure computers for salespeople as well. To do that you had to know
what cables (by part number and specification) were required to connect
what hardware to what other hardware. For example what sort of
controller was required for what sort of disk and what cables connected
the disk to the controller and the controller to what part of the
computer. It was complicated. In fact it good serious advances in
artificial intelligence before humans could be replaced by computers in
the process. I'd moved on by then and am glad of it.
By the time PCs started becoming really available I was long past
wanting to play with the hardware. In general I prefer to buy my
computers all ready assembled these days. Oh I'll install a new drive,
some additional memory or a new keyboard if one breaks. But as soon as a
motherboard goes or more than one or two parts need replaced that is a
signal to go shopping for a new system. In the early days of PCs a lot
of people kept asking me why I didn't build my computers from scratch.
After all, they kept telling me, I could save a lot of money that way.
Well I guess I could save money if I didn't value my time or if I
thought of the time spent researching what worked with what and
then putting the computer together as fun. But I do value my time and
doing that research and assembly is not fun. It's stuff I used to get
paid to do and frankly I can't afford me. So to be honest I
seriously doubt I could save enough money to make it worth while once
all the options are weighed.
Computer companies spend a fortune on good hardware engineers who
do the work to make sure things run well together. Sure a lot of things
will just go together and work ok. Sometimes you'll even luck out and
things will work great. Unless you are an engineer or otherwise very
highly knowledgeable on all the latest hardware options luck is what it
will take. Learning about all the latest hardware and what works well
with what and looking up all the specifications for everything is real
work and not something I really enjoy. Based on the level of knowledge
of people working in computer retailers lately I'm sure not going to
trust their recommendations either.
I'm a software guy so I figure I'll worry about that and let the
hardware companies solve the hardware interaction problems. If I need a
new computer I'm going to buy one already made. That way if it doesn't
work I have someone else to blame.
Don’t you ever sleep?
I actually do get this one a lot. Generally people think I am up
very late or very early because they think I am in a different time zone
than I really am in. The other thing that happens is that I am one
of those addicted people who when they get up in the middle of the night
to use the restroom or get a drink also stop by the computer to check
email. So it appears that I am awake at some very odd hours. In actual
fact I sleep a lot. My wife might say too much. :-)
When do you find time to
blog?
I often blog at night while watching TV with my wife. I also tend
to spend some time first thing in the morning before starting the
regular work day writing up blog entries that have been percolating in
my head for a while. I think about blogs when I am driving or bored and
then write them down when I get a chance. I don’t often sit down to blog
without having thought a good bit about it in off moments.
Where do you blog?
Computer Science
Education and Related Topics
Life, technology and
random thoughts
About Me
In January of 2013 I accepted a one semester appointment to fill in as a high school computer science teacher at Bishop Guertin HS and am still there. I'm excited to be back in the classroom but time will tell if this is really what I am going to do the rest of my working days. But the students are great and the work is interesting so who knows?
Before returning to teaching I was the K12 Academic Developer Evangelist with Microsoft Corporation for over nine years. Previously I was the Technology Director and a computer/technology teacher at Bishop Guertin High School in Nashua NH.
A more complete work history can be found on my resume page.
I am a graduate
of Taylor University in Upland IN where
I got my start in computers. I did my graduate work (MS in CS) at Rivier College in Nashua NH.
It turns out
that my old high school, Brooklyn Technical
High School, also has a home page on the net.
Follow @alfredtwo on Twitter