Ray Lischner

Ray is the award-winning author of several books on computer programming, such as C++ in a Nutshell and Delphi in a Nutshell, as well as Shakespeare for Dummies and other books. In 1994, Ray founded Tempest Software as a way to escape the corporate rat race. Apparently, however, you can take the rat out of the race, but you can't take the race out of the rat, at least not this rat. So Ray once again slaves for his wages, hunkered over a terminal, hacking away at code. His current employer is Proteus Technologies.

Outside of work, Ray occupies himself by caring for his two charming children, Arthur and Arden, and his wonderful wife, Cheryl.

In the distant past, Ray's fading memory tells him that he received a Master of Science degree in computer science in 2001 at Oregon State University, where he also taught computer science. As an instructor at Oregon State, Ray pioneered a number of innovative teaching techniques. His approach to structured labs for introductory programming courses was presented at the ACM SIGCSE conference in 2001. You can also read about Collaborative Learning Lite, his lecture technique that turns large lectures into small-group interactive sessions.

Reaching farther back into the past, Ray worked as a software developer at large and small companies on both coasts of the United States, and points in between. His expertise spans a broad range of languages (C++, Java, C, Delphi, Perl, FORTRAN, Pascal, PL/I, Smalltalk, Haskell, etc.), and systems (Linux, UNIX, Microsoft Windows, Solaris, VAX/VMS, Wang VS, Data General AOS/VS, etc.).

Ray has been writing programs and about programming for over two decades. He started his career after graduating from Caltech in 1984, with a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science.

Terry Wright, Scott Mayo, and Ray are the inventors of an intermediate spreadsheet structure, patent number 5,055,998. He did this work at Wang Laboratories.