Technology Interests


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Alan is interested in projects in the areas of

  • Distributed Database and Graph Systems
  • Big Data
  • Multiprocess and Concurrency-oriented Programming
  • Software Craftsmanship

Software Development Resources

Technology Entrepreneurship

Computing History

Tech News and Opinion

Media

Cool Quotes and Random Wisdom

There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.
C.A.R. Hoare, Computer Scientist
From his 1980 Turing Award Lecture

Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher

Worry is a dividend paid to disaster before it is due.
Ian Fleming, author

Spare the integrity, spoil the data.
Mike Britten, software developer

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
Ayn Rand, philosopher

Those who are enamored of practice without science are like a pilot who goes into a ship without rudder or compass and never has any certainty where he is going. Practice should always be based upon a sound knowledge of theory.
Leonardo da Vinci, Renaissance Man

The most successful software applications are never completed, they evolve with the enterprises they serve.
Daniel D. Corkill, software executive

Happiness is... The exercise of vital powers along lines of excellence in a life affording them scope.
Aristotle, philosopher

Be attentive. Be intelligent. Be reasonable. Be responsible.
Bernard Lonergan, philosopher

The universe runs on the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest.
G'Kar on Babylon-5, written by J. Michael Straczynski, writer

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.
Rick Cook, NASA mission manager (Mars Pathfinder project)

True artists are never jealous
Mel Brooks, comedian and writer

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw, writer

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Robert J. Hanlon. Known as “Hanlon's Razor”.

You know you have reached perfection in design, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to be taken away.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, writer