January’s EMusic

December’s EMusic

November’s EMusic

Farewell, John

John mccarthy

It’s been a horrible year for losing giants in the computing industry.

John McCarthy coined the term AI, and was highly influential in time-sharing systems (read: multitasking).

Now, I don’t write AI code, and I’m not an OS programmer, but John McCarthy’s impact on my life is nonetheless immense, because he invented the LISP programming language, and LISP powers Emacs. If a warrior lived and died by their sword, a coder lives and dies by their editor – I’m a tenth as productive in a mundane text editor as I am in Emacs, and LISP is a beautiful (if, to the untrained eye, inscrutable) language.

October’s EMusic

Farewell, Dennis

Dennis Ritchie

If I owe the start of my career to Apple, it’s only fair to admit that I owe the bulk of it to Dennis Ritchie. Dennis Ritchie was a co-creator of unix, the inventor of the C Programming Language, and the co-author of this gem: K R
I’m long past needing this book, but I keep it on my shelf. Both as a reminder of where I came from, and as a monument to the absolute zenith of technical writing.

There’s not a computer system in the world today that doesn’t owe some of its heritage to either C or Unix. Dennis was a quiet giant of computer science. He wasn’t a public figure like Steve Jobs, but his impact on the field of technology was at least as large, and his loss an equally terrible blow.

Farewell, Steve

Screen Shot 2011 10 05 at 20 40 26

My condolences to the Jobs family, and all of their friends. I wish you’d had more time with each other.

The first computer I ever used was an Apple ][+. The first I ever owned was an Apple //c, and I used that machine to learn how to program.

Today, I use a Mac all day, every day, and earn my living writing software for iOS.

Thank you, Steve. You will be missed.

September’s EMusic

There are more than 90 tracks this month, because EMusic did a giveaway on twitter, and I found a free album too.

August’s EMusic

July’s EMusic