Gaston C. Hillar is Italian and has been working with computers since he was 8 years old. In the early 80s, he began programming with the legendary Texas TI-99/4A and Commodore 64 home computers. Gaston has a bachelor's degree in computer science (he graduated with honors). He also holds an MBA (he graduated with an outstanding thesis). At present, Gaston is an independent IT consultant and a freelance author who is always looking for new adventures around the world. He was a senior contributing editor at Dr. Dobb's and has written more than a hundred articles on software development topics. He has received the prestigious Intel® Black Belt Software Developer award eight times. He has written many articles about Java for Oracle Java Magazine. Gaston was also a former Microsoft MVP in technical computing. He lives with his wife, Vanesa, and his two sons, Kevin and Brandon.
