DanConnolly

Last edit August 30, 2004
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)

  • The Facts for the Color Computer
  • OS/9 manuals

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.

  • Convex Tutorial Papers
  • Boosting our Collective IQ
  • WeavingTheWeb

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.

  • Posix 1003.1

I have become a LanguageLaywer/StandardsWeenie.

  • Scripting Languages: Automating the Web

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.

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