
An interview with James Gosling : The Setup - petercooper
http://james.gosling.usesthis.com/
======
adambyrtek
I initially found it surprising that most of the professionals interviewed for
The Setup use less than a dozen applications on a regular basis. I hoped to
learn about some interesting tools used by others, but it was mostly a
standard setup consisting of a terminal, web browser, and editor.

That made me think, so I started to analyze my own setup and realized that
it's actually very similar. I spend most of my time in just a few applications
regardless of a platform. I also noticed that initially I'm very excited about
apps that are designed for a specific task (eg. a dedicated GTD tool) but in
time I tend to gravitate towards more generic solutions (eg. a plain-text file
edited with Vim). The same also applies to web and mobile applications.

That makes me wonder, do we actually need millions of apps if people don't use
them in the long run? Don't we spend too much effort on playing with tools?
How does it affect startups?

~~~
bad_user
> _it was mostly a standard setup consisting of a terminal, web browser, and
> editor_

That's because anything that matters in software development can be accessed
through a terminal, through a browser (docs, mailing lists) or through your
preferred editor.

It says little about what you're actually using.

Also, software development is fucking hard anyway, and by using too many tools
you're passing this threshold where any productivity gains are lost in the
learning process associated with picking up new technology.

------
swah
"I do most of my programming in NetBeans, although I use vi a fair amount."

Is this like a joke? The guy wrote one of the first Emacses... I am
disappoint.

~~~
8ren
And Sussman switched to python. Religious wars are for followers, not
Creators.

~~~
kanak
Sorry but do you have sources to back up your assertion?

I took a class with Prof. Sussman, and even worked as an undergraduate
researcher for a summer, and I know for a fact that his current work is still
being done in MIT Scheme. The classes that he teaches currently Adventures in
Symbolic programming, and Structure and Interpretation of Classical Mechanics
are also in MIT Scheme.

Finally, when I asked him about his opinion on Python and he put it this way
"they wanted to have a language that they could use everywhere and also have
it work with robots [describing the new intro to EECS course at MIT] so they
picked Python."

So I strongly doubt the veracity of your statement. I think you're confusing
MIT EECS department's switch to python in many classes as a sign that Prof.
Sussman has personally switched to Python, which is very misleading.

~~~
8ren
No, just referencing a well-known event; but it seems you're right that he's
not teaching that course any more <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=531490>

However, he did say that _starting off with python makes an undergraduate’s
initial experiences maximally productive in the current environment._
[http://cemerick.com/2009/03/24/why-mit-now-uses-python-
inste...](http://cemerick.com/2009/03/24/why-mit-now-uses-python-instead-of-
scheme-for-its-undergraduate-cs-program/)

fun fact: norvig switched to python ( _for his textbook_ )
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1803815>

It's horses for courses (or ophidia for courses in this case).

------
chunkyslink
I liked to two things

1\. The guy has three kindles. I have one and I use it a lot. I'm not sure how
or what I'd do with another two. One works perfectly.

2\. His iPad lives in the bathroom and has replaced the magazine stack.

Brilliant

~~~
davidw
Maybe a bit unsanitary? I toss out old Economists after a few weeks, but an
ipad is something that's just going to sit there.

~~~
narag
I don't think that the iPad replaces _every_ possible use of a stack of paper
in a bathroom, just the reading part.

------
mhd
At last someone with a more messy setup than the usual stylish "big mac at
work / smaller mac at home" interviewee. Thought I was the only one with too
many computers (used and unused) at home.

~~~
joshfinnie
This is an important comment for the string of UsesThis entries. I can almost
guess what is going to be said on these and this one was a bit of fresh air.

My fiancee recently came up to me and asked me why there was a computer in a
box under the bed, when I replied saying it was my first tandy and might run
someday she just rolled her eyes.

It is nice to see there are some of us computer horders out there!

------
josh33
He wrote his own presentation software. I'd like to get my hands on a copy.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
<http://kenai.com/projects/huckster/>. It's linked from the article.

~~~
stuff4ben
doesn't look like there's a binary, just source. Still, shouldn't be that hard
to build.

~~~
mattparcher
I love Keynote on the Mac, but I also love trying new software. I just tried
to build it without success on Mac OS 10.6 using Ant 1.8.1. Any suggestions?

\- I cloned the Mercurial repo (my first time with a VCS),

\- I downloaded Ant [1], installed it [2], and successfully built a "Hello
World" build.xml [3] (I have some experience in the command line),

\- I ran

    
    
      ant -buildfile /Users/mattparcher/Huckster/build.xml
    

_Producing:_

    
    
      BUILD FAILED
      /Huckster/nbproject/build-impl.xml:351: The following error occurred while executing this line:
      /Huckster/nbproject/build-impl.xml:160: Compile failed; see the compiler error output for details.
    

[1] <http://ant.apache.org>

[2] <http://www.asceticmonk.com/blog/?p=388>

[3]
[http://www.andyjarrett.co.uk/blog/index.cfm/2007/6/27/Instal...](http://www.andyjarrett.co.uk/blog/index.cfm/2007/6/27/Installing-
ANT-on-Windows-and-or-Mac-OS-X)

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Figure out where the compiler output goes?

------
lylejohnson
_"In the closet I've got a home-built system that I use for network storage.
It runs OpenSolaris and has 5 2Tb drives: mirrored with a hot spare for a
total of 4Tb of usable storage."_

Just curious, what would an individual need that much storage for? I ask
because I'm living pretty comfortably with the 320Gb hard drive in my MBP. Is
it digital photographs, or maybe raw video footage?

~~~
shadowfox
Some of my friends have archives of data going back to 15 years. You end up
accumulating a lot of stuff that way.

------
amarcus
Beats the hell out of my single laptop setup that gets lugged around
everywhere I go

~~~
c1sc0
Why? I've come to appreciate having a single machine & not having to worry
about syncing stuff between machines, maintaining multiple development
environments, etc ... While I'm impressed by the sheer amount of hardware in
his household, I know it'd be a nightmare for me.

~~~
thisisblurry
Dropbox would be a viable solution for that though.

Based on the sheer amount of hardware in his house (and who James Gosling
actually is), I don't see why he wouldn't be able to afford a premium account.

~~~
cmkrnl
He uses Dropbox. I've seen the icon on his Macbook Pro :)

------
andrewmu
He's not going to be too pleased if Java isn't supported or maintained on Macs
in future.

~~~
sgt
There's always a way. If Apple decided not to include a Java runtime with
their operating system, that's fine. The important bit is that it will become
easy to install.

I wouldn't mind setting up my new computer with a fresh OpenJDK (when/if this
one becomes the de-facto JDK to use on OS X platform).

