Stephen Mellor is the other renowned co-author of the Shlaer-Mellor object oriented analysis and design method. Taking a moment out of a busy day as a geek-idol, Stephen has these remarks:
- What is
your programming language of choice?
Like Sally, I find that one's first programming language is often one's favorite. For me, that was BCPL, a predecessor to C, in turn a predecessor to C++. I suppose we should call it C--, or maybe just 'B'.
BTW, a defining experience for me was working briefly with Martin Richards, the author of BCPL. He never wanted to talk about it. It was a piece of work that he'd done, and he thought it should stand by itself. He was interested in networks at the time. "BCPL? I'm done with it."
- What is
your favorite operating system?
Anything that doesn't crash!
- Do you
have a hero or role model?
James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and the Enlightenment philosophers. The people that wrote the US Constitution. It's such a pity we don't observe the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Since the New Deal, these guys must be spinning in their graves.....
- What is
your favorite kind of music?
Grateful Dead. And everything that goes with it....
If you haven't been to a Grateful Dead concert, you haven't lived.
- What is
your favorite news group?
I love the anarchy of comp.object, though I often find that Proof by Repeated Assertion wins out over logic. (Thanks to John Wolfe for _that_ priceless phrase.)
- What is
your favorite web page (besides geekchic!)?
After http://www.projtech.com, it's http://www.cato.org.
There you can find out how to:
- Balance the (US) budget NOW. Forget 2002.
- Privatise that Federal Ponzi scheme, Social Security.
- Delete the Departments of Education and Commerce--just to get started.
- Stop corporate welfare, beginning with ADM where _we_ pay $30 for $1's worth of gas made from corn!!
- Set up Medical Savings Accounts.
- ...and many other delights that will increase _your_ freedom and reduce demands for you to pay for someone else's folly.
- What sports
do you enjoy?
I used to agree with Mencken: "Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down till it passes." Now that I'm over 40 and my warranty has expired (copyrighted joke to Leon Starr, except _he_ thinks his warranty expired at 30 (Hmmph!)), I find I can sweat hard and get my heart rate up by standing in the middle of a six lane highway in Florida.
- What kind
of car do you drive?
I recently bought a new car: a 1986 Honda Accord. It'll be 10 years old this July. I love it. I do have one problem though: If I have the window open and I lean on the door lock, then it locks the door, and when I pull the door open latch, it stays locked. (Is that trivial, or is that trivial?)
- What hobbies
do you enjoy outside of work?
Hey!! Am I a Geek?? Or what???
- What is
your favorite book (or author)?
I read The Economist, a weekly newspaper, established September 1843. I found out about the (still impending) disaster in Rwanda two weeks before I heard a thing from the local newspaper or the TV news. While "The Economist" (read: "the dismal science") name may turn off some, this newspaper is FUN. It consistently has the best writing I believe I've ever seen. I just read it and chuckle and chuckle and chuckle and...
They even had an article on object-oriented programming. Got it right too! Sometimes they can be a bit corporatist, but generally they have the right ideas.
Check out: http://www.economist.com
- What is
your favorite movie?
"The Year of Living Dangerously". Then "The Last Wave". Then "Gallipoli". All directed by Peter Weir in his early years. Avoid "Picture at Hanging Rock" and "The Cars that Ate Paris".
- What sort
of clothing do you usually wear to work?
In the words of one our colleagues, "The dress code at PT (Project Technology) is grubby to casual" I tend toward the grubby end of the spectrum unless I'm out in public. Then I feel I have to wear (at least) a strangler.
- What is
your favorite food?
I love food, any food, except the oxymoronic "English food". (I grew up there. I _know_.) I live to eat great food. Better yet, I can eat all I want and I don't gain weight.
My favorite foods are sushi, sushi and anything Japanese. OTOH, I loathe sea urchin gonads (uni). I love sushi so much that I make it (them?) at home, though I can't say I have down the seventeen steps to make the rice pellets.
BTW, lots of people people think sushi means "raw fish". Not so. Sushi means "vinegar rice" regardless of the topping. Sashimi means "raw".
Hmmmm. I'm hungry. Where's that sashimi knife? Or maybe it should be Thai tonight?
geekchic@geekchic.com