Introduction - John McDonough

[Karsten 'quaid' 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
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-docs-list/attachments/20080827/116dcf28/attachment.sig>