User:Joe n bloe

I'm Joseph N. Hall.

Wikipedia:Babel enThis user is a native speaker of the English language. Search user languages

Education and Professional Qualifications BCSThis user has a Bachelor of Computer Science degree. $_This user is a professional Perl instructor.

Computer Nerdity C-NThis user has written C compilers, or tweaked C runtime libraries in Assembly language. Perl-4This user is an expert Perl programmer. C++-4This user is an expert C++ programmer. Java-4This user is an expert Java programmer. [[Pascal]]-4This user is an expert [[Pascal]] programmer. SQL-3This user is an advanced SQL programmer. [[Smalltalk]]-2This user is an intermediate [[Smalltalk]] programmer. [[FORTRAN]]-2This user is an intermediate [[FORTRAN]] programmer.

Grammar Nits they he or sheThis user considers the singular they to be substandard English usage. byThis user does not use the passive voice. which & thatThis user knows how to use which and that correctly. “,;:’This user is a punctuation stickler. A, B, and CThis user prefers the serial comma. its & it'sThis user understands the difference between its and it's. So should you. their there they'reThis user thinks that there are too many people who don’t know that they're worse than their own children at spelling! your you'reThis user thinks that if your grammar is incorrect, then you're in need of help. ’sThi's user know's that not every word that end's with s need's an apostrophe and will remove misused apostrophe's from Wikipedia with extreme prejudice. USThis user uses American English. AIM-AbleThis user understands AIM talk perfectly well, but does not seriously use it. Ever.

I'm the author of Effective Perl Programming.

I was also known in the mid 1970s as a child prodigy and a survivor of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

I currently live in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the past, I've lived in Fairbanks, Alaska, Chandler, Arizona (near Phoenix), the Philadelphia area, Nashville, the Research Triangle area, and the Appalachian Mountains in northwestern North Carolina. I've experienced temperatures of 122 degrees Fahrenheit in Chandler and minus 55 Fahrenheit in Fairbanks - a 177 degree range!

Notes from the "Child Prodigy" Period

Warning: vanity in this section. I was known as "Joe Hall" in my childhood.

• Tomorrow with Tom Snyder, television interview, 1975
• ABC Evening News, news feature, November 21, 1975
• "Prodigy from Plumtree," Allen Rankin, Reader's Digest, August 1976 - this article was widely reprinted in international editions and I received thousands of letters, many addressed simply to "Joe Hall, Plumtree, North Carolina" (I haven't lived there for decades, so this address no longer works ...)
• Numerous other articles, including some that were nationally syndicated (I may have references later) - I've appeared at least once in almost every daily newspaper in the United States
• 1977 visit to the White House - see page 4
• Met a few notable figures, including Benjamin Spock, John Stapp, NC Governor Jim Hunt, and astronaut Michael Collins
• Spoke before the North Carolina state legislature in favor of the creation of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics
• Entry in The Book of Lists #2 (see "Joe Hall" in index)

Education

• North Carolina School of the Arts, 1977-1978 at age 11-12, 7th grade, piano
• Avery County High School, 1978-1980, high school sophomore-senior
• North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics 1980-1982 (first class), high school junior and senior
• Warren Wilson College, Math/English, 1984
• Villanova University, Electrical Engineering, 1985
• Clarion Science Fiction Writing Workshop, Summer 1985
• North Carolina State University, 1988-1991, B.S., Computer Science

I was the youngest person ever to attend NCSA at the time, and the first person ever to attend both NCSA and NCSSM. At 14, I was the second youngest student in my class at NCSSM - Kirsten (Beitz) Moss (also 14 years) was the youngest, by two months.

I had a great bunch of classmates at Clarion, including Geoffrey Landis, Mary Turzillo, Bill Shunn, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Robert J. Howe, Martha Soukup, Kim Fryer, and Resa Nelson. Kim was working at Addison-Wesley when I proposed Effective Perl Programming and was my first editor there.

Employment

I am a senior software engineer working for a company in Palo Alto.

I am also a photographer. Auroras are my favorite subject.

Photographs I Have Contributed to Wikipedia

I have contributed a number of medium-resolution versions of my photographs to Wikipedia, and plan to contribute more as time allows.

Light pillars from uncovered work lights above University of Alaska Fairbanks	Complex system of lunar ice halos	Sunbow over Kluane Range seen from Alcan Highway near Haines Junction, YT
Ice fog over Fairbanks - temperature approx. minus 30F	Midday during winter solstice in Fairbanks

Miscellaneous

My Sandbox