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 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).

I oversaw the development of Data Science course components for Minnesota State member colleges, including the integration of statistical methodologies, file storage/retrieval, data conditioning and categorization, predictive analytics, text mining, and Data Science infrastructure.

I co-founded the annual Data Derby Minnesota analytics competition.

I sponsored and developed a new Associates of Science degree in Data Science for North Hennepin Community College. More here: https://www.nhcc.edu/academics/degree-pathways/physical-sciences-engine…

I am the principal developer of epop, an alpha-stage 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).

If you are interested in possibly getting involved with the epop project, please email your indication of interest to epop@SystemGoats.com

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.