Hi. I'm Steve Summers. If my name sounds familiar, it's because I happen to be Vice President of the Firebird Foundation - which means my primary "management role" in the Firebird project is to hope like crazy that our current, very able president, Philippe Makowski, doesn't get hit by a bus. I'm also Vice President (and "Chief Architect) of DRB Systems, where my primary role in the Firebird project is to donate a fraction of the money we no longer spend on Interbase licenses. What I haven't done much of lately is contribute actual effort. After helping with the proofreading of the new web site, I realized that there is a way I can help the Firebird project that doesn't involve C++ programming (which I don't do - I'm a Delphi programmer, on the rare occasions I actually get to write code anymore), and doesn't involve actually knowing enough about how Firebird works to write documentation. What I can do pretty well is proofread and edit "Standard Written English". I'm told that most of the people on this list are writing in English as a second language. While I don't have a second language, I took enough Spanish in college to realize just how INSANE my native language must appear to non-natives. In Spanish, there are a few "irregular" words, but most follow rational rules. In Engish, the only parts that aren't irregular are the words imported from Latin. The only way to really master "Standard Written English" is to read lots of it. Having grown up an introverted nerd, I've read literally thousands of books, so while I can't always explain why something is right or wrong, I can generally tell when it is. I also spell better than Microsoft's spelling checker because I can tell the difference between "there", "their" and "they're", for example, and I know not to use apostrophes in pronouns and plurals just because they happen to look "posessive". Anyway, after a brief discussion with Paul Vinkenoog, he invited me to join this list and introduce myself, to volunteer my services as an editor of documentation topics and articles. I have huge respect for all of you who understand this stuff well enough to write the documentation at all, let alone in a foreign language. You shouldn't have to feel hesitant to submit your work because it's not written perfectly correctly in a foreign language. I'm technical enough to be able (in most cases, anyway) to correct wording without harming the meaning and breaking the technical accuracy, so hopefully I can be helpful this way, and save you all some time that can be better spent writing MORE documentation. I have to warn you that for the next three months, I'm not going to have much time available. I'm moving to a different State in late June (Ohio to Colorado, about 1400 miles/2200KM apart, for those of you with more geographical knowledge of North America than I have of anywhere else :-)), from a house I've lived in and accumulated "stuff" in for 18 years, so I'll be pretty busy until the move and for a few weeks afterward. But I do have some spare time, so let me know if there are high priority tasks I can help with. I'm looking forward to working with you all.
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