Jack Pope

By career, I am an economist and system developer of investment data analytics, wrangling data now since the time when "big data" meant a big pile of floppy disks. I spend a great deal of time programming for system and statistical applications, database development, and distributed computing on UNIX/Linux systems.

I keep busy as a system developer / administrator for the firm Investment Economics (aka "System Goats"), as a board member of the publication Foresight - the International Journal of Applied Forecasting (https://forecasters.org/foresight), and as Chairman of the Twin Cities Section of the IEEE Computer Society (https://www.computer.org). Formerly, I was a fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research (https://www.aier.org).

My hobbies include running and Ham Radio electronics. See https://www.arrl.org to get your radio license!

As a Data Science lead for Minnesota State Colleges and Universities, I spent several years with other faculty in developing various Data Science curricula, including the Data Science AS degree at North Hennepin Community College. Check out the NHCC Data Science A.S. at https://www.nhcc.edu/academics/degree-pathways/physical-sciences-engine… !

Also pertaining to college Data Science, I co-founded the annual Data Derby Minnesota inter-collegiate analytics competition.

I am the principal developer of epop (https://systemgoats.com/epop.html), a Forth inspired Functional Programming environment written in the D programming language.

Forth is a programming language with many implementations. This is because Forth can be implemented using relatively few functions in the host language, such as Assembly (or D). In that respect, Forth may be considered as much an implementation-paradigm as a programming language. (See https://forth-standard.org and https://dlang.org).

I believe that the Linux operating system is best for students. It is free and open source and offers students the greatest flexibility for learning about the broader operating system context in which their programs reside. Therefore, I recommend Linux as an instructional platform throughout the Computer Science curriculum.  For more information, please visit https://www.linuxfoundation.org

My simplest advice to students of Computer Science: The best way to learn programming is to write programs.