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Tom Gilb emails someone who's long ceased to be a Recent Changes Junkie
Tom was in London. I hadn't heard from him since, well, shortly after we first made a friendly mess together on his page here. I was struck in 1999 how Tom edited Wiki on first sight of his page, put up by me a few weeks before, as I sat with him in his flat in Covent Garden. By contrast, when I showed Michael Jackson his page, also started by me, I'm pretty certain, the Englishman said "Thank you, very interesting" but clearly was never even going to dream of touching it or any other page here. I wonder now if Michael's natural caution was wiser than I thought.
Still, this difference in reaction remains one of my most enjoyable memories of the profound differences between the two veteran gurus. The gulf was visible on more than one occasion, as Nick Simons has also often commented on. It's interesting to us both because of our profound respect for both men, going back to personal contact with them in the 1980s. And Nick has only just learnt that Jennifer Stapleton used to work for Michael way back at Hoskyns. As Nick said, that puts one of our most famous Gilb-Jackson shoot-outs in a different light again.
Edited highlights
I co-founded Objective Computer Systems Limited in 1983. The Seven Pillars Of Cred summarized what we'd learnt by 1996.
I believe that widespread adoption of the Software Management Manifesto, Evolutionary Delivery and the recently discovered Nonlinearity Of Xp will greatly affect software development. Maybe it's time for an Accidental Revolution.
I remain interested in untyped languages with incremental, uniform environments, like Smalltalk, in functional languages such as the Haskell Language and in reflexive end user environments such as that pointed to by Microsoft Excel and VBA. Mostly to ask this question:
Can End Users Script.
As an Open Author, I assert no copyright to my signed contributions on Wiki but I'm certainly tempted by Drakes Equation.
Philosophical preamble
I think the Mistakes Of Roger Penrose may be even more significant than what he's got right. Interestingly, I find myself supporting so-called Hard Core Platonists in this area but questioning the influence of Plato on Christian thinking over the centuries. And I never even met the guy. I wonder if Plato would be interested in my Near Death Experience. Would he have lent a hand in moving it to Why Clublet?
Pages I'm glad I started on Wiki
Smalltalk Block Vote - surely my best ever pun on Wiki, and all the voting pages it links to. They're not always used perfectly (in fact they never are, that's the beauty of it) but at least they are used without too much bother, thanks to the wonder of:
As of time of writing. A couple on wider social issues of software that I'd still like to understand better are
Pages started that are slightly more borderline
Plain English is less punchy than it used to be but has probably done good overall
Reduced to clear
I continue to be against Pseudonymity With Untraceability, such as that once used by Vicki Kerr. Faceless Rulers and Maintaining Sunir have the latest angles.
Contact details are on my page on Why - just click the logo below.
Page last edited April 3, 2010, Why Clublet down -> Richard Drake Discussion --Manorainjan Holzapfel
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