I've worked in software for 50+ years, in a variety of areas: Macsyma, a computer algebra system, and now on its open-source version Maxima; on Lisp language implementation and design; on Ada language design and compilers; on programming language design in general; on operating system kernels; on an architecture-neutral distribution format; on database management systems; on enterprise storage systems; on Web infrastructure software; on Web search; on airline pricing; on enterprise search with rich structured data; etc. Most recently, I worked on the open-source search engine OpenSearch. The travel guide project I started a few years ago needs to be completely rethought based on the state of the art in AI. My dissertation was on the design of programming languages.
I am now retired, so fortunately I have a variety of other interests.
I'm interested in encyclopedias both for their form and their content, and have in my personal collection several English, French, and Greek encyclopedias from the 19th and 20th centuries.
Thank you so much for all of your efforts on the article Odwalla, which just recently passed FAC. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have without the work you did. Thanks again. Intothewoods29 (talk) 05:45, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for creating the new Lagana (dough) article, and for expanding Wikipedia's coverage of historical foods. NORTH AMERICA1000 04:48, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
The Original Barnstar
To counteract the bad faith vandalism warnings, here's a barnstar for your attempts to improve programmatic media. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 20:08, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Diligence
Thanks for improving my edits to the Dairy products article. I edited it in only about 45 minutes, and your help is appreciated.
Thanks! Your Pal, MooperVeltresleex 19:37, 29 October 2016 (UTC)
The Copyeditor's Barnstar
Thank you for all of your help. Roy.c.white (talk) 15:22, 29 January 2018 (UTC)
The Barnstar of Diplomacy
Thank you for working on Talk:Marvin Minsky to resolve edit wars and conflicts in an unbiased and editorially responsible way. Gnuish (talk) 19:28, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
Your patience in resolving the issue on Talk:Marvin Minsky is highly commendable. Barnstar++ from me. 83.100.188.53 (talk) 16:55, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Wikipedia has tremendous potential, but it is discouraging to see how much effort we have to spend to deal with mindless vandalism, puerile boosterism and nationalism, and crank POV-pushing. It is also time-consuming to correct well-meaning but ill-informed enthusiasts, and to try to educate people about good research practices, but at least there you feel you're acting in an educational role.
I guess my philosophy on participating in WP is to try to be reasonable with reasonable people, and even more reasonable with unreasonable people.
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