Remember that in 1993 a company with a bad Web site needed an engineer. Today, a company with a bad Web site needs a psychiatrist.

Even within traditional universities there has always been debate about whether it wouldn't be better to focus on only one course at a time.

If I'd had more time or been a better writer, I would have tried to put the same ideas and experiences into a novel. But I didn't so I slapped it up on the Web.

When you choose a language, youre also choosing a community. The programmers youll be able to hire to work on a Java project wont be as smart as the ones you could get to work on a project written in Python. And the quality of your hackers probably matters more than the language you choose. Though, frankly, the fact that good hackers prefer Python to Java should tell you something about the relative merits of those languages.

Like most people in Academia, my vision of the future is the same as the average industry person's vision of five years ago.

Although the Buddhists will tell you that desire is the root of suffering, my personal experience leads me to point the finger at system administration.

We worried about competitors, but it was an unreasonable fear. As a friend once pointed out, most gunshot wounds are self-inflicted.