Philip Greenspun

From The Dead Letter Department

I’m getting rid of lots of paper. Where I can, I put the nuggets of wisdom online. These minimal notes are from the two-day seminar given by Philip Greenspun at Caltech several years ago.

He used the WimpyPoint system to do the slides. Looks like his slideshow is protected, so I can’t provide the real url.

And Now, Assorted Notes:

One so-funny it’s sad thing was his mention of a tenured professor in Computer Science who in conversation asked him “what’s Oracle” and “what’s an RDBMS”

“No matter how good your user interface is, it’s better to have LESS of it”

“Q: Why is the war between Linux and BSD so intense?”
“Because there’s so little at stake.”

He dismissed graphic design almost entirely, at one point saying “Add a look and feel if necessary.”

On documentation manuals, and on why systems have to be made plainly learnable in and of themselves, he asks: “How much did you pay for your car? Have you read the owner’s manual?”

“The war (to build database-backed websites/communities) is won or lost on developing a data model, and specifying legal transactions.”

The standard SQL thing of ACID:
A – atomicity
C – consistency
I – isolation
D – durability

In building websites, the eternal tension is: “The wisdom of 50 years of software engineering” vs. “The Schedule”

The value of a toolkit (such as ACS) is that it requires less customization. It’s going to be better than a roll-your-own solution madly hacked in anticipation of an impossible rollout deadline.

At the time I thought this was interesting, but now I have a lot more respect for this statement… “SQL is actually very subtle.”

And lastly, on the myriad technologies available to the aspiring webhead: “Not everything you can learn is worth learning.”

Mini Brain Dump! wherein, I get rid of links which are crowding the sticky notes on my desktop

A Few Links on Professionalism:
Tom DeMarco: Professional Awareness in Software Engineering
American Society of Safety Engineers: Scope of a Safety Professional
Steve McConnell: Software Engineering Professionalism Website
Philip Greenspun: Redefining Professionalism for Software Engineers

A Few Links on Micropayments:
Clay Shirky: The Case Against Micropayments
Jakob Nielsen: The Case for Micropayments
The w3c: Micropayments Overview
Scott McCloud: Coins of the Realm II
Jakob Nielsen v. Seth Godin in Business2.0: Micropayments Debate
The Industry Standard: Web Publishers Learn to Love Micropayments
The Industry Standard: Amazon’s ‘Honor System’ to Handle Micropayments for Other Sites
NYT: If You Like This Story, Click Here to Pay Me
Current King of Small Transactions: PayPal

A Few Krazy Kat Links:
Krazy Kat: The Coconino County Home Page
“Some Say it With A Brick”: George Herriman’s Krazy Kat
A Krazy Kat Strip Archive

Any worthwhile thought I’ve had about web applications came from exposure to Philip Greenspun. Read this, and then check out his new textbook in progress, and visit his home page.