Josh Strongly agreed. Music is about form, and so are systems. The most valuable skill I had when I left professional music to became a programmer was the ability to grasp the relationship between the parts and the whole. Whether it was Beethoven's Symphonic form, Charlie Parkers bebop melodic structures or the Beatles song form, it was about relationships, and it is in well understood and well implemented patterns of design that applications and systems survive or fail. Things such as mathemetical skill or knowledge of operating systems or langauages are secondary. Nic Paton