Philip Greenspun
Philip Greenspun
Philip Greenspun is a semi-retired American computer scientist, educator, and early Internet entrepreneur who was a pioneer in developing online communities. His blog, hosted by Harvard Law School, contains his opinions on diverse subjects, from politics, to technology, to even divorce and discrimination law...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth28 September 1963
CountryUnited States of America
art stars book
The book the Ziff folks sent me as an example of their art was 'Late Night VRML 2.0 with Java,' 700 pages + CD-ROM, published February 1997. I was personally acquainted with more movie stars than people who might conceivably have wanted to buy this book or any book like it.
believe thinking astrology
I don't myself believe in astrology. However, I think that's because I'm a Libra and Libras are always skeptical.
thinking three mit
Everything that I've learned about computers at MIT I have boiled down into three principles: Unix: You think it won't work, but if you find the right wizard, they can make it work. Macintosh: You think it will work, but it won't. PC/Windows: You think it won't work, and it won't.
smart python community
When you choose a language, youre also choosing a community. The programmers youll be able to hire to work on a Java project wont be as smart as the ones you could get to work on a project written in Python. And the quality of your hackers probably matters more than the language you choose. Though, frankly, the fact that good hackers prefer Python to Java should tell you something about the relative merits of those languages.
shoes icons bored
Start by putting yourself in your users' shoes. Why are they coming to your site? If you look at most Web sites, you'd presume that the answer is "User is extremely bored and wishes to stare at a blank screen for several minutes while a flashing icon loads, then stare at the flashing icon for a few more minutes."
today needs remember
Remember that in 1993 a company with a bad Web site needed an engineer. Today, a company with a bad Web site needs a psychiatrist.
people parent rich
Most people who are rich chose their parents wisely.
average years visions-of-the-future
Like most people in Academia, my vision of the future is the same as the average industry person's vision of five years ago.
real devil program
The devil is real. He lives inside C programs.
buddhist roots suffering
Although the Buddhists will tell you that desire is the root of suffering, my personal experience leads me to point the finger at system administration.
stupid taken thinking
Frame is a good enough piece of software that there are actually rewards to taking an intelligent and formal approach to your problem. But if you want to be stupid, you can think of Frame as a version of Microsoft Word with most of the bugs taken out.
strong book support
Progress in computer science is made with the distribution of revolutionary software systems and the publication of revolutionary books. We don't need a fancy information system to alert us to these grand events; they will hit us in the face. Another good excuse for ignoring the literature is that, since everyone has strong beliefs about fundamentals but can't support those beliefs rationally or consistently convince non-believers, computer science is actually a religion.