Experience:
12/85 - present Dynamic Healthcare
Technologies (formerly CoMed and before that
The MUMPS Collaborative), Waltham, Mass.
A variety of assignments designing, programming,
and maintaining health-care related programs.
- Developed tools and base objects for use by application programmers.
- Designed and developed a program to convert free-text source code
comments in PowerBuilder objects into searchable HTML documentation
(á la Javadoc).
- Designed and wrote software in a variety of
languages (Mumps, C, DynaComm macros, WordPerfect macros, DOS batch) to
enable users to use PC versions of WordPerfect (DOS and Windows)
to edit data on a large central computer.
- Designed and wrote a program which uses artificial intelligence
techniques to assign pathology research codes based on interpretation of English text.
Field tests have shown this program to be more accurate than similar programs
developed elsewhere.
- Co-authored a materials management system for use by hospitals. The
system includes requisition, purchase order, shipping and receiving, and
inquiry modules.
- Created a program to translate the output of a report writer into Lotus
1-2-3 format and download it to a microcomputer.
- Translated a five-thousand line system into a different dialect of Mumps.
This assignment included the development of utilities to do certain types of
automatic translation.
- Co-author of a package to allow nonprogrammers to design and preview
custom reports, using modules written by programmers. The specifications for
each report, when final, are compiled into Mumps routines for
improved performance.
- Substantial involvement in the development and improvement of
inhouse utility programs.
- Modified a variety of routines for unusual customer
specifications, increased efficiency, greater clarity,
and/or compatibility with other software.
- Wrote documentation for many utility programs and developed written
style guidelines for Mumps programmers in the CoMed environment.
- Involved in development of CoWindows, a screen/windows development
package. Tasks included participating in design, writing software for compiling multiple paragraphs
of Mumps code into routines, optimizing for best performance; modifying a
programmer's editor for use as a text editor, including addition of mouse
support; and writing help and script subsystems.
- Designed and implemented SQL stored procedures to efficiently
retrieve and format large amounts of data.
- Wrote installation scripts using Installshield.
1/01 Ars Digita University
Recitation Leader
For a class in Object Oriented Programming using Java,
prepared supplementary material,
assisted students with assignments,
graded examinations, and helped lecturer
as needed. Materials I developed are online here.
2/86 - present Matchups
Developed a full-screen routine editor.
- Developed methods to allow complete user
customization of the interface without sacrificing performance.
- Created software which will run under any standard Mumps implementation
and on any terminal, but will take advantage of special features which some
of them may have.
- This software has been
adopted by CoMed as an integral part of their software tools.
Developed mass-market software.
- Designed, wrote, and documented a
computer program called Tyler which plays word games. This
program has met with an enthusiastic reception from both
customers and the press. Its level of play is noticeably higher,
and its selection of features much broader, than those of other
products on the market. Tyler has won four silver medals at
Computer Olympiads in the
Scrabble
competition. Copies of reviews available on request.
- In process of developing an MS-Windows version of Can't Stop, a
commercial board game invented by Sid Sackson.
- Author and co-designer of Explore, a multi-user,
Adventure-style social, creative, and puzzle-solving
environment.
National Rating Statistician for Scrabble.
- Designed and implemented programs to maintain
database of over 6000 players.
- Wrote software to do automatic page layout of tournament results,
including both tabular and running text.
- Made modifications to rating formulas so results would more nearly
reflect actual abilities.
- Designed procedures for directors' reports of tourney results,
including provisions for error prevention, detection, and handling.
Representative to
Mumps Development
Committee
- Actively participated in design of many new standard features,
including reverse $ORDER, SET positional, and RSAVE
- As a Subcommittee secretary, helped develop standards for
accurate and useful minutes
- Served as chair or secretary to several task groups
8/86 - present Peace Information Project
Pro-bono software development for nonprofit organization.
10/88 - 10/99 Polylogics
Runtime library programming and application programming
- Wrote routines to provide runtime support for
programs translated from MAXIMumps and Old MIIS into Standard Mumps. These
included string-handling functions, screen I/O, and mathematical operations.
- Developed data entry screens, improved data entry tools, and created
a report writing module for a telephone directory advertising system.
- Wrote programs to create Postscript code for labels.
6/87 - 6/88 The Massachusetts General Hospital
Contract assignments involving conversion of a Mumps system.
- Designed and implemented a program to automatically translate the MGH PDP-15
dialect of Mumps into the MGH VAX dialect. Manually modified the resulting code
to remove old bugs and improve the user interface.
- Identified the causes of a specific job taking far too much system
resources. This involved reading the code, writing benchmarks, and writing
a profiler to determine which routines were the bottleneck.
Developed a terminal emulator.
- Developed an emulator to run on a PC and replace
the Visual 300. Features include setup menus, block mode,
and multi-page scrolling.
4/84 - 10/86 InterSystems, Boston, Mass.
Developed marketable Mumps computer programs
- Designed and wrote M/Word, a state-of-the-art word processor, and
dealt with time and space limitations imposed by an interpreter on a small
machine.
- Co-authored M/Form, a powerful user-friendly screen-design system.)
- Tested very early versions of Mumps system software and made suggestions for
corrections and improvements.
7/80 - 4/84 University Hospital, Boston, Mass.
Developed Mumps computer programs.
- Expanded Cancer Data Management System, adding new features to
enable physicians to follow patient protocols more closely.
- Designed and implemented many system utilities for internal use.
11/88 - 8/91 Brigham and Women's Hospital
Software development in support of hospital information systems.
- Improvement of a report writer to handle
a wider range of queries and a variety of databases
- Debugged and brought on-line a full-screen routine editor.
- Primary programmer for outpatient registration and scheduling.
Improved patient registration and lookup system.
- Developed procedures to identify duplicate registrations in the
current database.
- Modified the name index and lookup to reduce the
incidence of duplicates in the future without overburdening the old hardware
and operating system.
- Designed a phonetic search algorithm to run on the hospital's new
computers which would fix the flaws
in the existing Soundex system, based on research into the actual
types of errors made by data entry clerks.
10/84 - 6/87 FPF Housestaff Scheduling Service
Developed a computer system to produce schedules for hospital house
staffs.
- Worked with a team of physicians to produce functional specifications
which would cover the requirements of almost all teaching hospitals.
- Wrote programs to accept schedule specifications and produce sample
schedules and house officer questionnaires and programs to merge in the
answers to these questionnaires and produce high-quality final schedules.
1990 - 1995 Eric Albert
Algorithm design
- Consulted with professional crossword constructor on
database improvement and on the design of a program to
optimally fill in crossword grids.
6/77 - 8/79 Gilford Instrument Labs, Oberlin, Ohio
Developed COBOL, APL, and Assembler computer programs.
Honors and Affiliations