I taught college level CS back in the late 80s, early 90s while also working as a freelance programmer. Although none of the persons in my class actually said 'can't do it', some should have since they could not grasp simple concepts like iteration, arrays or pointers.

Without a sound grasp of the basics, it's impossible to be an effective programmer. Only with a sound grasp of the basics can one translate a business problem into software. Only but a few exceptional people can grasp the basics in six weeks. I've had the pleasure to meet a few, but many were mediocre programmers and I've had to fire a few who had advanced degrees in CS since they could not code their way out of a wet paper bag.

I own 4 Play:1 and a play boost and I'll be dammed if I give these cock suckers any more of my information.

Also, it appears that they, Sonos, have gotten to Slashdot since I was forced to login to actually post a comment! I'm guessing they want to know who is calling them cock suckers?

I was speaking English and French fluently at the age of four. All of my education prior to post-secondary was completed in French and all of my post-secondary was completed in English. Note, where I'm from, Eastern Ontario/Western Québec, speaking, reading and writing two languages is the norm rather than the exception. Outside of the U.S. many countries have more than one official language, for example the country to the north of you.

It's been a while but if I remember the i4i product allows you to author data in MS Word based on a document type definition (DTD). The use of Word to do so is not new. Another small Ottawa Canada based company, Microstar Software, were first to do so with their product called Near & Far Author for Microsoft Word (http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-16732008.html). This the same company that brought Near & Far view, a graphical view of SGML DTD, to market. They started working on Author around 1994-1995 time frame. I joined MIcrostar's Research Dept. in late 1995, so I can't say for sure when they started. Matt?

Author would take an SGML DTD and create a Word template that embodied the grammar defined by the DTD. This template along with a special plug-in would guide the user through the document creation process. The document's validity was verified using James Clark's SP SGML Parser Tool Kit, which was compiled into the plug-in.

Authoring was part plug-in and part Word Basic, such that when Microsoft switched to VB Script in Word 6, or there about, the product was not ported to the newer version of Word since sales were not as expected and it would have meant investing significant resources, for a small company, to make it compatible with Word 6.

I use subscribed to both Asimov's and Science Fiction and Fantasy for many years, but I dropped them both when they became mostly focused on Fantasy. I'm not a fan of the fantasy genre and prefer space exploration sci. fi. Reading authors like Asimov, Clark, Bova and Heinlein is what drove me into studying the sciences and is why I work in the aerospace industry.