About the authors

ProgramLive was written by David and Paul Gries. The voices you hear on it are those of David, Paul, and Petra Hall. The ProgramLive Companion was written by Petra, Paul, and David.

Paul Gries, Petra's husband, received his B.A. in 1992 and M.Eng. in computer science in 1994 at Cornell University. A lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Toronto since 1999, Paul has been experimenting with teaching introductory programming in a self-paced course, using, naturally, ProgramLive. Paul has already received four awards for his teaching, from Cornell and Toronto. Visit Paul's website for more information about him.

Petra Hall, David's daughter-in-law, has been a teaching assistant for first-year courses at the University of Toronto and was extensively involved with a pilot project using ProgramLive. She is finishing her undergraduate degree part time at the University of Toronto --the process was slowed down to some extent by the birth of Petra and Paul's first child, Sage Ellen Midas Ann Hall, in September 2000.Petra is one of the few people in the world whose text (The ProgramLive Companion) is being used in the department in which she is an undergraduate.

David Gries, Paul's father, received his B.S. in 1960 from Queens College, his M.S.in 1962 from the University of Illinois, and his Dr. rer. nat. in 1966 from the Munich Institute of Technology, all in mathematics since computer science was not yet there. He taught for three years at Stanford and thirty years at Cornell. He was at the University of Georgia from 1999 to 2003 and then moved back to Cornell, where he is again a professor of computer science and also associate dean for undergrad programs in the Engineering College. Known for his contributions to compiler writing and programming methodology, he has received four international computer science education awards, from the AFIPS, the ACM SIGCSE, the ACM, and the IEEE Computer Society. Visit David's website for more information about him.