Title: The Wall

Dear Francis

I thought a word of introduction might be appropriate. I have just become a member of ACCU (00045i); previously I subscribed to EXE (I had decided to subscribe to ACCU even before that magazine ceased publication).

I have had a go at responding to questions 5 and 6 in C Vu 12.5 and also at doing the Code Critique.

I work on a laptop running Linux so they are in plain ASCII format; please advise me if I could provide anything more helpful to you.

The other item I have attached is one I wrote in the first instance as a suggestion to the powers-that-be at the place I was working earlier this year for improving software development. I got nil response (apologies if the "creative writing" aspect of my Code Critique is a little jaundiced, by the way. But my team leader really did try to insist that user defined type conversions in C++ were a Microsoft specific feature, and the other incidents also have a basis in my experience. I think you should give Nathan the prize for being so open and willing to learn). After that I tried to send it to EXE for consideration, as the basis of an article, but by then its editor's e-mail address was no longer valid. I'm not so sure that it would be appropriate for C Vu. As you will see there is nothing very original in it, just a re-hashing of material from Robert C. Martin and yourself, which is why I'm not sure it is appropriate.

Finally, I have recently taken up contracting with my own limited company, which will very shortly be registered for VAT. Is this of any use to your conference organisation? If all you need is an account then you can use my company (provided it doesn't go overdrawn). My guess is that you probably need rather more than this, but if I don't volunteer I won't find out.

Chris Main

Thanks. You will find Chris' contributions elsewhere in this issue. In general, re-hashing material is acceptable as long as it is a new presentation and is actually desirable in the sense that newcomers need to read what others have already seen in the past.

Chris was one of four members who offered help re conference organisation. As you will see elsewhere in this issue, we had an offer from a long term friend of ACCU (sometimes those complimentary copies of C Vu pay off) who has experience in running technical conferences.