Fifty years after starting the 'Art of Computer Programming', (TAOCP), Don Knuth is still working hard at the project. He has almost completed the first five volumes. It is considered amongst the "hundred or so books that shaped a century of science". Richard Morris asks him how things are going, and to find out more about his many achievements. … Read more
Eric Sink became well-known for his work with the Spyglass browser, which was acquired by Microsoft and morphed into Internet Explorer. Since then, he has succeeded at the difficult double-act of combining programming and the software business. He is living proof that it is possible to master both skills.… Read more
A whole generation of British geeks owe a debt of gratitude to Roland Waddilove. He is a journalist with a rare knack of being able to explain complex technical ideas in a very simple way. Many successful developers cut their teeth many years ago on an Atari, Electron, Sinclair or Amstrad computer, poring over the technical articles of Roland Waddilove in well-thumbed magazines
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On moving to Cambridge University after developing the SLAM model checker used by Microsoft's Static Driver Verifier, Dr Bryan Cook's new computer locked up with what turned out to be a faulty driver. The result was TERMINATOR, the first practical tool for automatically proving that any application would always terminate.… Read more
Ted Krueger is well known for his 'Less-Than Dot' website. He is a SQL Server MVP who has been working in development and database administration for over 13 years. He was one of the finalists to the Exceptional DBA of the Year Award for 2010… Read more
Learning .NET doesn't have to be dull: not when there are geeks like like Carl Fraklin and Richard Campbell with the wit and ability to talk interestingly about it. If you don't listen to their podcasts on .NET topics, then maybe you're missing out on a great way of whiling away the time spent commuting between home and work.… Read more
As the winner of the Exceptional DBA Awards 2010 is announced, we take a moment to recognize last year's winner Josef Richberg. We sent Richard Morris to meet Josef to find out what has happened in the past year, and if life has changed for the Exceptional DBA of 2009.… Read more
Grady Booch is probably best known for being one of the original developers of the Unified Modelling Language (UML). He defined much of the way we go about the Object-Oriented analysis of applications. He's also interesting to chat to about programming, as Richard Morris found out. … Read more
Almost certainly, you use the results of Roy Fielding's work every day. After all, he was one of the principal authors of the HTTP specification, was active in developing HTML and the URI, defined REST, and remains one of the directors of the Apache Software Foundation, having co-founded the Apache HTTP Server that runs the bulk of the words webservers. … Read more
Tom Kyte's contribution to the AskTom column and site over ten years has been outstanding. Much of what he says has relevance to all relational databases. His views are straightforward, the discussions he provokes are lively: Not only does he know a frightening amount about both Oracle and SQL Server, but he's also refreshing to listen to. … Read more
Falcon isn't exactly new. It is a scripting language that is designed with a number of programming paradigms for multi-threaded applications. It is growing rapidly in importance. Richard Morris decided to contact Giancarlo, the language's creator, find out why there was so much interest in it.… Read more
Erland is best known for his famous SQL Server site http://www.sommarskog.se/. It is plain, it has eight articles in it, it is short on jokes: However, it is hugely popular and one of the great 'essential' SQL Server sites. We sent Richard Morris to find out more about Erland, and he discovered a diligent and energetic teacher and mentor in the SQL Server Community.… Read more
When anyone mentions 'Kernighan and Ritchie', we all know what they are referring to: that brief book that introduced the C language to programmers, and set a high standard for all subsequent books on computer languages. Now over thirty years later it is still in print and translated into over 20 languages, being required reading for undergraduates. We sent Richard Morris to interview Professor Brian Kernighan… Read more
The Cobra Programming Language is an exciting new general-purpose Open-source language for .NET or Mono, which features unit tests, contracts, 'informative' asserts, generics, Compile-time nil/null tracking, lambda expressions, closures, list comprehensions and generators. Even if it had been developed by a team, it would have been a remarkable achievement. The surprise is that it is the work of one programmer with help from a group of users. We sent Richard to find out more about that one programmer.… Read more
Cristina Cifuentes was already well-known for her work on decompilers before she took the development of Sun Microsystems 'Parfait' bug-checking application for C/C++ source. Unlike the classic 'Lint', Parfait is careful about avoiding false positives. What is more, it is fast, and popular with programmers.… Read more
With Clojure soon to be ported to the .NET framework, as ClojureCLR, we felt that the time had come to see what the fuss was all about amongst the Java Geeks. We sent Richard Morris to find out from the creator of Clojure, Rich Hickey.… Read more
If one were to close one's eyes and imagine a BT Executive, one would never conjure up Bruce Schneier. He is one of the greatest experts in cryptography, and a well-known mathematician. He even got a brief mention in thebook 'The Da Vinci Code'. He also remains an outspoken and articulate critic of the way that security is actually implemented in applications, as Richard Morris found out when we dispatched him to interview him.… Read more
It's likely that you are already using the results of Peter Norvig's work every day, if you search the internet with Google. One of the smartest moves that Google ever made was to hire the man who not only was a leading expert in Artificial Intelligence, but was an expert application developer. Now he leads a team of over a hundred researchers to discover better ways of handling issues such as the machine-understanding and machine-translation of language in the quest for semantic search. … Read more
Donald Knuth is an extraordinary man. As well as inventing 'Literate Programming' and writing the most important textbook on programming algorithms, he is also famous for designing and programming one of the most widely-used digital typesetting systems ever, even designing the fonts that went with it. He also pioneered the use of 'Open-source' software. Knuth is a man of engaging charm and enthusiasms who combines a knowledge of history, music, art and mathematics with a unique insight into the art of computer programming.… Read more
Simon Peyton Jones is a Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research's lab in Cambridge. Although he is best known as the developer of the definitive Haskell Compiler, his influence on the development of the new generation of functional languages such as F# has been profound. He has also been in the forefront of the development of parallel programming using Software Transactional memory. We sent Richard Morris across the road to find out more.… Read more
