

Ask HN: Help me prepare for my interview with Ward Cunningham - milesf

I've scored an interview with Ward Cunningham for an upcoming Pragmatic Podcast, and would really like help from the Hacker News community. I've always loved the questions that get asked here.<p>If you could ask Ward Cunningham a question, what would it be?<p>If I use your question, I'll credit the submitter in the show notes.
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runjake
For those like me, wondering (no disrespect) who Ward Canningham is:

 _Howard G. "Ward" Cunningham (born May 26, 1949) is an American computer
programmer who developed the first wiki. A pioneer in both design patterns and
Extreme Programming, he started programming the software WikiWikiWeb in 1994
and installed it on the website of his software consultancy, Cunningham &
Cunningham (commonly known by its domain name, c2.com), on March 25, 1995, as
an add-on to the Portland Pattern Repository. He currently lives in Beaverton,
Oregon and is the chief technology officer for AboutUs._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham>

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stcredzero
If you have time, go for a walkabout here:

<http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WelcomeVisitors>

It's the progenitor Wiki.

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milesf
Thanks. I'll be reviewing that page as well as many other old interviews.

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kbob
When I met Ward, I asked him if he'd ever used a wiki. His immediate facial
expression was impossible to transcribe.

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milesf
I usually collect questions using an EtherPad that I tweet out
<http://titanpad.com/qVBi1QngeR>

Really surprised to see my old method outperforming HN.

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stcredzero
Ward's been around while. (See my other comment about the progenitor wiki.)
He's actually in a position to talk about interesting historical perspectives,
like the rise and fall of Smalltalk. (The same for Patterns, come to think of
it.)

One thing I've heard about Ward, is that he has an uncanny ability to learn
something positive in _any_ situation. Where others come away with annoyance
or frustration, he'll come away with a keen insight.

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rch
How about: what would be 'simplest thing that could possibly work' if one were
implementing a new government for an existing nation-state?

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stcredzero
For what time period? Dictatorships often work well, if the requirements are
reduced to a time span of just a few years and personal freedom is not a part
of the spec.

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rch
Sure, I'd call that a valid point.

Replacing one dictatorship with another has significant historical president,
and might be very simple if everyone agrees on who should be in charge. One
might argue, though, that if the new regime needs to actively suppress an
oppositional group, by any means, then the solution might no longer qualify as
simple.

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duncanj
Do you think automated functional testing (in the style of Fit) is catching
on? What is getting in the way?

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gcao
How about this -

What new technology or methodology do you see that might have a big impact on
future software development? Like object-oriented programming, concurrent
programming, functional programming and Agile methodologies had in past
decades.

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jhrobert
1/ How are wikis doing today?

2/ What is the future of wikis?

3/ How are you involved?

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rch
vi or emacs?

