Profile

Profile of John Wells

General Information

I figured I'd write this to provide some background on who I am. I am happily retired in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I got into programming in 1973 at college and retired on January 4, 2016. I joined SoloLearn on January 28, 2016 to learn Java. However, being burnt out, I only did a lesson or two every few months. I discovered I enjoyed answering Q&A to rediscover my love of programming leading to my longest daily streak started August 10, 2017 ending December 25, 2020. I was a moderator nominee as part of the December 8, 2017 group becoming a Silver moderator at the end of the trial. I was promoted to Gold moderator and achived Platinum level on May 16, 2018. I was promoted to Platinum moderator at the end of the October 30, 2018 nominee trial. When SoloLearn hired moderators, I became a Mentor April 19, 2022.

I've built my own computer making my own instruction set. I've programmed in many assembly and high order languages (over 3/4 way to triple digits used for a week or more, double that for used a day or two). The bulk of my work related programming is in 4 languages: 4 years of Cobol, 16 years of Pascal, 16 years of C, and 33 years of C++ (languages were overlapping.) Now, I play in Kotlin for over 2 years.

I've programmed in Unix (and Linux), off and on since the first public release. Attended MacOS and Objective Pascal class at Apple. I've programmed on mainframes from CDC, DEC, & IBM, minis from DEC & Prime, and various micros (mostly Apple, Sun, & Windows.)

Addition details available thanks to Calvin via clicking on the * characters (code.)

Programming

I created Cobol reporting programs for my college as my first job, for the 4 years I was attending school.

My second job of 19 years I developed multidrop phone networking, Ethernet networking (prior to Internet,) compiler (C & Pascal), source code editor (Pascal on Mac,) embedded os, telephone switch (C), software development environment (Pascal), and asynchronous transfer mode networking (C++). I also was on my company's ADA language review committee and consulted on various military contracts, network, & performance issues across multiple divisions of the company.

My final job was in C++ programming set-top boxes and voicemail systems.

Currently playing with Kotlin as it is my favorite and attempting to force the knowledge past my short term memory loss. Wanted to make an Android application with it, but cannot sit at a desk to use the laptop (required because its keyboard is broken and display is flakey so needs a monitor, USB keyboard, and USB mouse.)

Addition details available thanks to Calvin via clicking on the * characters (code & displays at top of page.)

Teaching

This service is temporarily on hold.

I am willing to assist your learning of programming by giving a programming assignment in baby steps. Create a empty or, as best you can, start of your program. Fill in English comments of sample input, sample output, and description of your expected processing. Post the link to it as a comment on this program or tag me in a comment on the code. I will respond with a comment on your code and we will go from there. If you just want some assignment I create for you to do, don't put any comments in it. You may also contact me here on Discord or via SoloLearn's messaging. Do not waste time trying to be friends. Just ask your questions.

Things I expect from you.

Correctly formatted code with comments in your native language (I may not be able to read it, but I do know how long reasonable comments are.) Look at my code for comment and formatting examples. Note: while standard indents are 4 characters, I use 2 to save screen space on my phone.
Likes on all of my comments to the code we are working on. This is how you pay me for my time.
Spend time trying to figure things out on your own. Programmers learn by making mistakes and attempting to fix them on their own. However, don't waste hours instead ask for hints or help. Steps should be doable in under 5 minutes so spend 15 trying it yourself.
Search web for concepts not code. Read documentation of library functions or language features and learn for yourself.

Languages available are any listed in my skills set that also have one or more example codes in my program list. I can answer questions on languages I don't know, but teaching them requires my having practiced them. Just remember that I don't know everything on any language. The C++ I learned and used is a subset of today's full language. If it doesn't run here, I can't help teach it because this app is my only IDE. I'm very good at understanding documentation so I can answer questions you have about it.

Remember, real life is my first priority so I may not respond for a day or two. If I'm posting here and not to you, I probably missed the notification (my phone is contantly beeping.) Posting again is allowed on the third day. I might post a comment on your code of when I'll get to it. If tons of people make use of this service, I will let the line 51 code display a notice that this service is temporary on hold. Keep checking back as I will eventually finish with people and be looking for new students.

Detailed Information

Profile of John Wells

General Information

Programming

Teaching

Profile mi