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An Interview with Brian Kernighan

An Interview with Brian Kernighan

John Wait: Many popular newer programming languages trace their roots to C. Unix has had direct and indirect influence on many newer operating systems. To what do you attribute the longevity and popularity of both C and Unix?

Brian Kernighan: Both C and Unix strike a very good balance among expressiveness, efficiency and economy of means. That means that they are a good base to build on: the good ideas are worth stealing and the efficiency sets a standard of comparison.  It’s also easier for people to make a transition from something familiar than to make a big change, so a language or system that has significant elements of familiarity is more likely to be a success.

Via LWN.

Telling people to leave finance

Telling people to leave finance

First, I want to say it’s frustrating how risk-averse the culture in finance is. I know, it’s strange to hear that, but compared to working in a start-up, I found the culture and people in finance to be way more risk-averse in the sense of personal risk, not in the sense of “putting other people’s money at risk”.

People in start-ups are optimistic about the future, ready for the big pay-out that may never come, whereas the people in finance are ready for the world to melt down and are trying to collect enough food before it happens. I don’t know which is more accurate but it’s definitely more fun to be around optimists. Young people get old quickly in finance.

Spending the last few years in a variety of forex companies, I have to agree.

Flightfox – real people compete to find you the best flights

Flightfox – real people compete to find you the best flights

They are travel agents, airline personnel, or frequent flyers, and all of them are obsessed with finding the best flights.

They understand airline pricing, rules, routing, and frequent flyer programs. They’re also real people, so you can ask them anything.

I think this is a brilliant idea and excellent crowd-sourcing example.

Real-time clock, with builders. Video

Real-time clock, with builders. Video

This is absolutely awesome!

70 workers are building a wooden 4 x 12 m “digital” time display in real time: a work that involves 1611 changes within 24 hour period.

Seamlessly documented and shot on video, a 24 hours movie or clock is now available.

Standard Time is an artwork of Mark Formanek, realized by Datenstrudel.

A few websites around the web have it synchronized to the actual time…

ADWiki

ADWiki

Online documentation system for JavaScript projects that adhere to JSDoc API documentation format.  Includes:

  • Tools for parsing JSDoc blocks in the JavaScript files
  • Clean documentation website based on Twitter Bootstrap
  • Simple blog engine integrated with the site, where developers can commend and extend project documentation.

Requires Node.js and MySQL.