On 26 Jan 2010 at 8:13, Zane H. Healy wrote: "All the programmers were mathamatitions by training." Sigh. Obviously not English majors. My experience was that programmers came from far more diverse backgrounds--when I got my first job, my boss's computer training consisted of having worked on SAGE. The guy in the office next to mine was a Music Ed graduate from IU. If anything, the common thread that ran through the systems group was that most people could play a musical instrument--the guy across the hall from me took 6 months off every other year to play his trombone in the casinos in Las Vegas--I still have one of his group's LPs. Must be a corporate-culture thing. --Chuck