Operating Environments: Mac OS (through 10.4); Linux (X Window/bash) 2.4.x, FreeBSD 4.x (via Mac OS X). Have edited and compiled kernel-level code for these environments.

Programming Languages: C Family (C [25 yr], C++ [15 yr], Objective-C [19 yr]). XTalk Family (HyperTalk/HyperCard [20 yr], SuperTalk/SuperCard [14 yr]). Ruby [7 yr].

Tools: Apple Xcode/Project Builder [8 yr]. Subversion SCM [3 yr]. Metrowerks CodeWarrior through Pro 8.2 [10 yr]. Apple Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (MPW) [9 yr].

Skills: Object-Oriented Programming [18 yr]. Design Patterns [8 yr].

Technologies: Cocoa (OpenStep) [8 yr]; Graphical Human Interface [25 yr]; Image conversion and processing [11 yr].

Operating Environments: MS-Windows (through XP)

Programming Languages: Java [9+ yr]. AppleScript [18 yr]. Squeak Smalltalk [3 yr]. Mathematica [6 yr]. Assembly: (6502 [4 yr], BAL [1 yr], 8080/Z-80 [2 yr], 8088 [3 yr], 680x0 [8 yr]).

Tools: Macromedia Dreamweaver [2 yr]. EMACS [10 yr]. CVS [5 yr]. Gnu Make/GCC [9 yr]. Gnu Flex+Bison (lex/yacc) [3 yr].

Technologies: Quicktime (for media display, format-conversion, and image analysis) [15 yr]. SGML (reading, writing, parsing, rendering) [9 yr]. Apache/http [8 yr as administrator of own web server]. RTF (reading, writing) [1 yr].

Operating Environments: VAX/VMS

Programming Languages: Perl [8 yr]; Python [3 yr]. FORTH; FORTRAN II; EMACS LISP/Scheme; Dylan.

Technologies:: CORBA [1 yr].

The University of Chicago Networking Services and Information Technologies, Chicago, Illinois.

Macintosh programmer for large university ISP. Produced installer for Internet-connectivity software to be used by students and faculty.

Parallel Software, Naperville, Illinois

Senior software engineer and consultant. Applications design for Mac OS 8, 9, and X; driver programming for Mac OS 8/9; kernel programming for Mac OS X.

NewMedia, Inc., of Columbus and Cleveland, Ohio (working in Indianapolis, Indiana).

Senior software engineer and consultant responsible for applications, component design, and programming for Mac OS 7 for manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and the military.

Scientific Software Products / DOME Software, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana.

Senior software engineer and human-interface specialist on an R&D project to develop a distributed object-oriented database management system (OODBMS) for use in the pharmaceutical industry.

Independent contractor and consultant in microcomputing applications for education and medical instrumentation. Clients included Indiana State School Music Association and Microsonics, Inc.

Step Into Xcode: Mac OS X Development 480+ pages, Addison-Wesley, February 2006. Author

POST Queries in Cocoa, a three-part series, MacTech Magazine, March-May 2003.

Apple World-Wide Developer Conference, May, 2002.

Apple USB Driver Developers’ Kitchen, August, 2001.

Brainbench Master Certificates (transcript 2944319):

• C (99th percentile, ranked #1 in Chicago area when taken)
• Programming Concepts (98th percentile)
• Written English (95th percentile)

• Graduate of the Second City Conservatory Program, 1999
• Amateur radio license WT9T (Amateur Extra grade).
• Hack recognized at First MacHack hack contest, 1987.
• Author of reviews and articles in Macintosh Products Guide and MacUser (US) Magazine, 1984-1989.
• Included in acknowledgements of The Dylan Book, 1995.
• Served on organizing committee for MacHack in late 1980s and early 1990s. See Doug Houseman, Late Night with MacHack.
• Admitted to the bar of Indiana 1980–1983, retired in good standing.
• Private pilot, single-engine-land, 1974-76.

Crescat

Problem: There was no satisfactory SSH terminal client for Mac OS X. Novices (the main clients of the University support group) found the terminal-in-terminal experience of ssh in Terminal.app confusing, and experienced users wanted a terminal that supported ANSI printing commands from UNIX applications like pine.

Solution: A new terminal emulator, running ssh in a pseudo-tty. In addition to being an absolutely faithful ANSI color terminal, Crescat offers a rich array of features:

• Configurable text and background colors.
• Resizable terminal windows.
• Preference system remembers settings by host and user, and defaults to last host/user connected.
• Optional highlighting and click-to-open of URLs and email addresses.
• Optional rendering of blinking text with radiating-line background (less annoying and more suitable for documentation).
• Complete support for drag-and-drop of text.
• Complete support of Mac OS X services.

Result: Novices have a straightforward tool that asks only for what it needs (host and user ID) and stays out of their way. Experienced users have a tool that stays out of their way, but adapts readily to their needs.

See the Crescat Help Book.

CGM Converter

Client: Navistar International, Inc., Parts Catalog division.

Problem: S, a Navistar employee, was responsible for receiving CGM-formatted graphics from an outside vendor and converting them to PICT format for use in an automated catalog system. The existing solution crashed frequently, and converted 2–3 files per minute when it worked.

Solution: On my own initiative, I started a weekend project that Navistar enthusiastically embraced, to make a CGM-to-PICT converter. The finished product (full-time about two months, half-time about eight) is fully AppleScriptable, Carbonized, batch-processes at up to 10 files per second, identifies mouse hotspots, and produces QA logs (it turned out that about 5% of the vendor’s files were corrupt, but S could never prove it).

Result: S’s work is no longer dominated by this one task. He can give reliable productivity estimates, and hold suppliers to quality standards. He also likes his job better.

Details: Learn more about this project at <http://towerofart.manoverboard.org/~fritza/resume/cgm.html> this page.

Other Work: The long relationship with this client included C, C++ and Java development of applications and application plugins, as well as scripting for HyperCard, SuperCard, and Virtual User. I was the designer and 50% coder on a pure-Java JFC replacement for the interactive parts catalog, beating with two-and-two-halves craftsmen, on a five-figure budget, an IBM team on a parallel project with dozens of engineers and a seven-figure budget.

Computer-Aided System for Human Engineering

Client: Armstrong Aerospace Medical Research Lab, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio

Challenges: The Armstrong Laboratory is responsible for maintaining human-engineering standards and information bases for the United States Armed Forces and NATO. The aim of the CASHE project was to present this knowledge base in a hypertext browser.

• Designed and implemented rich-text layout and display engine with inline images and hyperlinks rendered from SGML.
• Designed and implemented a structural database for resolving hyperlinks in SGML documents (using CTree).
• Designed and implemented a full-text database for SGML documents, with simple stemming, stop list, arbitrary AND, OR, and proximity queries, conforming to the text-retrieval AppleEvent suite.
• Designed and supervised the implementation of graph and picture hot-spotting and display software.
• Designed and participated in the implementation of SGML-driven table-layout and -display module.
• Implemented RTF-export module for SGML-specified rich text with in-line graphics.
• The project succeeded; the product shipped.

See also: Don Monk, “Visualizing Human Performance Data — A Hypermedia Approach,” Proceedings of ACM Hypertext’93 — Posters, 1993, pp. 26.

ParamText

Client: Eli Lilly and Company

Challenges: Delivered a novel human-interface element presenting database fields in the context in which they would be used.

• Implemented in C and 680x0 assembly as a single user-interface plug-in within the Omnis-7 database front-end for the Macintosh.
• Presented as a flowable stream of text, with only limited portions of the stream editable.
• Each editable portion corresponds to a field in the current record.
• The Omnis programmer passed to the plug-in a printf-like string with static text and placeholders, and lists of field names, constraints, and defaults.
• Field types included unrestricted text, integer, float, and popup menu.
• Static text and fields wrapped like regular editable text as the end-user filled the fields in.

Distributed Object Management Environment
(Laboratory Computing Environment)

Employer: DOME / Scientific Software Products

Challenges: Provide a general human interface for a new, distributed object-oriented database management system (OODBMS) under development.

• One of eight engineers on R&D project, most drawn from Indiana University OODBMS graduate program.
• Given a VAXstation for prototyping human interface, showed that the proposed HI could be delivered in days on a Macintosh, thereby securing second-round funding for the project.
• Built custom WDEFs CDEFs, MDEFs, and LDEFs to produce desired Smalltalk–80-like HI desired by SSI.
• Designed and helped implement on both Macintosh and VAX/VMS a byte-stream protocol on top of the Appletalk Transport Protocol (ATP).
• Wrote Mac-like, drag-and-drop iconic browser for the DOME OODBMS that included a “bag of tricks” metaphor for queries, associated with the user, by which the user could summon desired instances out of the database.
• Wrote and maintained Hypercard XCMDs to access the DOME OODBMS from customized applications.

Audition Scheduling on the Apple II

Client: Indiana State School Music Association

Challenges: Six thousand high-school musicians participated every year in dozens of categories in the Indiana High School Auditions. Scheduling judges and competitors into rooms was a weeks-long struggle with index cards for the IHSAA’s director and four assistants.

• All scheduling done on one 64K Apple IIs running Apple (UCSD p-System) Pascal. Parallel events could be scheduled on separate machines.
• Data-driven, per-event policy on event start time, interval between participants, time window for lunch. Accommodated, when possible, the desire that participants from the same school should neither be spread through the whole day, nor scheduled consecutively.
• Data-entry was through floppy disks, filled at Apple II workstations at IHSAA and larger participating schools. Wrote turnkey data-entry program.
• Scheduling became more accurate, though limited to the speed of floppy-disk swapping and daisy-wheel printers.

M-Mode Echocardiography Analysis Program
2-D Fetal Growth Analysis Program

Client: Microsonics, Inc., then of Indianapolis, Indiana, reporting to John Freeland, President, founder, and director of research.

Challenges: On 320K, 8088 IBM Personal Computer with CGA graphics, at direction of client,

• Implemented mouse tracking with serial digitizer tablet.
• Implemented measurement and report engine.
• Implemented event-loop-driven human interface (GUI), using function pointers to isolate "object" behaviors.
• Implemented recursive-descent floating-point arithmetic parser for user-specified calculations.
• Overcame 64K segment barrier by developing an overlay loader for large program modules.
• Was praised for speed and quality of work.