Introduction - John McDonough

[John J. McDonough]

My name is John McDonough and I am a retired computer professional living in 
Midland, Michigan.  I write ocasionally, have an online tutorial on PIC 
microcontrollers, the occasional amateur radio magazine article, and even a 
Six Sigma article.  I have used Fedora since FC1, although I don't always 
keep up with every release.

I feel a certain obligation to contribute, but although I program from time 
to time I can't really see myself being able to commit the time nor 
intensity needed to develop.  However, I believe I have a better than 
average command of the English language, and when first Paul Frields and 
then Karsten Wade mentioned the need for beat writers, it seemed to me that 
this might be a way I could give something back.

Looking at the list of open slots, it seems as if I could add something in 
the gcc arena or possibly Development Tools.  I use gcc regularly, mostly C 
or C++, but I'm not above writing the occasional line of Fortran or Ada.  At 
this point, though, it isn't entirely clear how a writer learns what is 
going on for subjects that don't have a PoC.  Wade through subversion 
comments maybe?

Hmmm ... the SelfIntroduction page says you might want to know more about 
me.  Well, although I programmed for many moons, my real interest has been 
the software process.  After retiring I did a little consulting on Six Sigma 
as applied to software development at some very large firms on three 
continents.  Prior to retiring my role was to provide the technical guidance 
on large (>1MM USD) software projects.  I was (thankfully) insulated from 
many of the administrative burdens, although I did play a major role in our 
software process.

On the personal side, I am an amateur radio operator, in fact, Radio Officer 
for the state of Michigan, which means I spend a lot of time with the state 
police.  I like grody technical stuff, build radios, play with 
microcontrollers, all that geeky stuff.  Still, if one looks at my history, 
both at work and at play, the people skills are not entirely absent.

With David Nalley's help I got signed up to FAS, did the CLA thing, now it 
looks like I have a heck of a lot to read!

--McD

[Karsten Wade]

On Thu, 2008-08-07 at 15:32 -0400, John J. McDonough wrote:
>  My name is John McDonough and I am a retired computer professional
> living in 
>  Midland, Michigan.  I write ocasionally, have an online tutorial on PIC 
>  microcontrollers, the occasional amateur radio magazine article, and even a 
>  Six Sigma article.  I have used Fedora since FC1, although I don't always 
>  keep up with every release.
>  
>  I feel a certain obligation to contribute, but although I program from time 
>  to time I can't really see myself being able to commit the time nor 
>  intensity needed to develop.  However, I believe I have a better than 
>  average command of the English language, and when first Paul Frields and 
>  then Karsten Wade mentioned the need for beat writers, it seemed to me that 
>  this might be a way I could give something back. 
Great, John, thanks.  Your interest and expertise is most welcome.

>  Looking at the list of open slots, it seems as if I could add
> something in 
>  the gcc arena or possibly Development Tools.  I use gcc regularly, mostly C 
>  or C++, but I'm not above writing the occasional line of Fortran or Ada.  At 
>  this point, though, it isn't entirely clear how a writer learns what is 
>  going on for subjects that don't have a PoC.  Wade through subversion 
>  comments maybe? 
Not that bad.  Try these:

* Put your name next to the beat on the wiki.
* Subscribe to fedora-devel-list and scan recent archives for gcc
related content.
* Same for reading the Fedora planet (http://planet.fedoraproject.org)
* Feel free to drop an email to that list and let them know you are
covering this for the release notes.
* Look in https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features for information on
planned and proposed features for Fedora 10 that impact gcc et al.
* New work and interest seems to be happening in gdb, as some folks
appear to have given up on Frysk; changes here would be news for Fedora
10 most likely; look at Tom Tromey's blog posts to see what he is doing
there: http://tromey.com/blog/

One thing that is fortunate -- Uli Drepper is one of the most consistent
developers when it comes to sending us release notes content related to
gcc.  That would point you in more research directions.

>  Hmmm ... the SelfIntroduction page says you might want to know more
> about 
>  me.  Well, although I programmed for many moons, my real interest has been 
>  the software process.  After retiring I did a little consulting on Six Sigma 
>  as applied to software development at some very large firms on three 
>  continents.  Prior to retiring my role was to provide the technical guidance 
>  on large (>1MM USD) software projects.  I was (thankfully) insulated from 
>  many of the administrative burdens, although I did play a major role in our 
>  software process. 
Do you think of the open source methodology as a new/different approach?

Just curious, rather off-topic but an interest of mine. :)

>  On the personal side, I am an amateur radio operator, in fact, Radio
> Officer 
>  for the state of Michigan, which means I spend a lot of time with the state 
>  police.  I like grody technical stuff, build radios, play with 
>  microcontrollers, all that geeky stuff.  Still, if one looks at my history, 
>  both at work and at play, the people skills are not entirely absent. 
+1 to hams, open source seems to attract our fair share.

>  With David Nalley's help I got signed up to FAS, did the CLA
> thing, now it 
>  looks like I have a heck of a lot to read! 
Either ask questions here or come visit us on IRC to work through
anything that comes up.

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, Sr. Developer Community Mgr.
Dev Fu : http://developer.redhatmagazine.com
Fedora : http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
gpg key : AD0E0C41

[John J. McDonough]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karsten 'quaid' Wade" <kwade(a)redhat.com&gt;
To: <fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com&gt;
Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 6:04 PM
Subject: Re: Introduction - John McDonough

>  Do you think of the open source methodology as a
>  new/different approach?
>
>  Just curious, rather off-topic but an interest of mine. :) 
Actualy, I've noodled that some, and wondered how/where to poke my nose in 
to study it further.

Much like CMM, Six Sigma techniques as applied to software development can 
be somewhat liberating for developers, and can make them far more effective, 
but there is a hump to get over that, like CMM, requires strong management 
commitment.  I don't see how that could be done in a FOSS environment, but I 
also haven't looked too hard (yet).  Six Sigma in particular is also all 
about metrics, and developers and metrics mix about as well as oil and 
water.  Still, few people seem to respond as well to improvements in 
productivity as developers, especially when they can see it in those numbers 
they abohr. (Go figure).

I do see fertile fields in some of the peripheral areas of the process, 
though.  The whole feature vetting process, for example, seems like an 
obvious candidate.  Communications also has to be a prominent target.  But I 
need to personally get much more of the process internalized before I can 
take out my stick and poke around a bit <g>

--McD