In 1964 I wrote my first program. I remember the program, the person who helped me, and how he taught me to do it. I've been involved with programming ever since, and especially interested in the problems confronting learners and those teaching computer programming.

How can we help people learning programming for the very first time and those doing the teaching? I've addressed the problem as follows:

• developed some foundation software packages for teaching programming
  • a Java interpreter, written in Java
  • a graphics and animation package
• developed an initial system to use the above foundation packages
• established field trials for the initial system to teach first semester OOP, with
  • select individuals with no programming experience
  • experienced programmers
  • first-year students at several universities
• the results of the field trials led to extensive refinements to the system's software and pedagogy
• introduced academicjava as a framework for the new approach
• in February 2007 initiated an international field trial of academicjava
• results from the trial led to further refinements
• in September 2007 academicjava was formally launched.