Dr. Bill Toll

While a student at Taylor I sensed the Lord directing me to teach at a Christian college. After spending 16 years at Asbury College (and moving from physics/math/cs to only cs), I was able to come "home" in 1990. I enjoy interacting with the students and my wonderful colleagues. I am able to teach some really fun classes and also work to develop teaching tools including web server applications (lecture notes, gradebook, submission system) and some Tablet PC programming.

Outside of work I enjoy spending time with my family, interacting with friends from church, leading a Bible Study, playing sports, woodworking, and various construction projects as I have time.

General Information

Church Affiliation:
Brookhaven Wesleyan, Marion, IN
Family:
wife: Donna (Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Ball State University and Taylor University)
son: Tim (1999 TU COS/Graphics graduate, employed at PDI/Dreamworks Animation)
daughter: Jeni Riley (2003 TU Social Work graduate - will complete MSW in May 2007) - married to Andrew Riley
son: Benjamin (2006 TU Sociolgy and Political Science graduate - living in Cedar Park, TX) - married to Jenny (Kappel), TU '06

Links

Homepage
"Official" University page
A list of publications with versions in MS Word, Adobe pdf, and postscript is available.

Questionnaire

Most famous person you ever met?

Donald Knuth

Favorite part about your job?

Answering questions

First computer you had or used?

Used - IBM 1620 when I was in high school
Owned - TI99

First program you wrote? In what language?

FORTRAN followed closely by assembler

Vim or Emacs

Vi - never figured out emacs

Worst bug you had to track down?

Passing a constant 2 as a reference parameter in FORTRAN which resulted in 2 * 4 not giving 8 since the value of 2 was changed

Preferred operating system?

Linux

Distribution of Linux you use?

Red Hat

Linux windows manager you use?

KDE

Preferred programming language?

C, followed closely by perl

How does your relationship with God affect the way you use computers?

When I talk to my computer, which is often, I treat it with respect

Favorite Bible verse?

John 1:1

Where do you get your computer news from?

Nate Ehresman

When did you first know you were interested in Computer Science? What attracted you about it?

freshman year in college - a good way to combine physics, math, and problem solving - and it was a lot of fun

E-mail client you use?

pine

Favorite type of cheese?

provolone

Favorite fantasy author?

whoever writes Microsoft press releases

Favorite smell?

mine

Puns: good or bad?

bad! - have you not been in any of my classes?

Write the following code in C++ in your favorite coding style:

    def countOutLoud
        for i := 1 to 100 do
            print "Number: " . i

for(int i=1;i<101;printf("Number: %d\n",i++));

Favorite *nix shell?

bash

Favorite computer science text/reference book?

Computational Geometry: Algorithms and Applications

Python or Perl?

perl

Do you pronounce SQL as "sequel" or do you say each letter?

each letter - I like to spell without using vowels

Favorite branch/area of mathematics?

geometry

Favorite physical science?

physics

Favorite TV series?

West Wing

Favorite band/composer/artist?

Rich Mullins