Dan Connolly

My research interest is investigating the value of FormalSystems to describe ChaoticSystems? like the WorldWideWeb, especially to address TheTroubleWithConsensus.

I have been working on WebArchitecture since 1991; I edited the HyperTextMarkupLanguage 2.0 spec and helped start ExtensibleMarkupLanguage.

Hmm... after reading Prey by Crichton, I'm curious about GeneticAlgorithms.

I keep a home page at http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/.

In Feb 2001, as we start the SemanticWeb activity (http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/), I'm ChoosingaWiki for use at W3C. I'm scribbling a few notes here in the mean time, and I'm finding that there's an EconomyOfScale that rewards my investment here.

My Feb 2002 experiment (http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/pywiki?WebArchitecture) didn't fly.

This March 2003 experiment (http://esw.w3.org/topic/DanConnolly) seems to have critical mass.

Here is the story of how I discovered WikiWikiWeb, told by MyLowestBookshelf:

LifeTheUniverseAndEverything... My .sig bore the quote "We believe in the interconnectedness of all things" for a few years; this is a DouglasAdams quote; actually, it's a misquote, as AdamRifkin pointed out, in a message to fork (anybody got a pointer? ahh... thanks, google http://www.xent.com/FoRK-archive/july97/0450.html)

Affectionately, the CoCo?. My first FormalSystem was BillGates's Basic; then 6809 assembly. I discovered recursion without being told about it; I was writing a program to visualize molecules and I implemented it with GOSUB and stacks in arrays.

I learned 6809E assembly by disassembling the interpreter. I remember asking "Where are the variables?"

I decided that a modem was the highest priority among peripherals and other upgrade doodad.

I got into OS9 and C and the UnixWay soon enough. Built a printer interface and wrote a device driver for it. HomeBrewHardware is frustrating!

I bought a Mac SE in '86. I love the Macintosh. (I miss CutCopyAndPaste?. I live in a dungeon of emacs, vi, and notepad these days.) 

 The Mac SE Support Pages
 http://www.edprint.demon.co.uk/se/
 Thu, 27 Aug 1998 17:39:13 GMT
I wrote an 80,000 line HyperTalk application for school registration that used SimulatedAnnealing. HyperCard is cool. I learned a tiny bit about marketing software.

I learned C++ one weekend when I visited my sister who was taking a course on it; I hate CeePlusPlus.

lex, yacc, etc. My first job was at Convex Computer Corporation. I learned PerlLanguage from TomChristiansen.

... comp.lang.* esp news:comp.lang.scheme

I met TimBernersLee and DougEngelbart at the 1991 HypertextConference? in AustinTexas?. I was living in DallasTexas?, working for ConvexComputers?, at the time, but I met the gal who's now my wife that weekend, so I moved to AustinTexas? to be with her in 1992. That was my first exposure to a LifeInStartupCompanies?. It was great, in a way: I wrote 30,000 lines of code in one year and worked with some great engineers who taught me about ModulaThree.

I have become a LanguageLaywer?/StandardsWeenie?.

I went to Hal software systems to help them integrate the Online Information AccessSystem? with the web. I discovered the PythonLanguage while I was there. I love python. I love/hate. I'm conflicted about PythonVsPerl.

I joined Tim to build W3C in 1995. RohitKhare joined soon after I did. I think he was the one who introduced me to patterns and WikiWikiWeb. We talked a lot about architecture and design, especially WebArchitecture, as well as journalism, etc. bought it March 1998.

CategoryHomePage

EditText of this page (last edited August 30, 2004) or FindPage with title or text search