Oh, great to see that Code Quarterly is coming along.
Hal Abelson: My math PhD was in algebraic topology, which had nothing to do with computers. Then I got interested, through thinking about topology, in the relations with distributed computing and that eventually formed a bridge into doing something in computing.
For those wanting to find out a little more about these connections, Herlihy & Rajsbaum, 2000, An Overview of Synchronous Message-Passing and Topology, is a really great place to start.
Awesome interview that sheds a lot of light on how Abelson thinks programming should be taught. I really wish I could have taken 6.001 instead of 6.01 though as a CS student. I had a bit of an a-ha moment reading about the abstractions Abelson talked about in 6.01, but when I was taking the course, it went straight over my head.
beautiful: ... I’ve decided that from now on, I should be measuring the quality of my life by the ratio of the amount of time spent programming to the amount of time sitting in meetings.
Hal Abelson: My math PhD was in algebraic topology, which had nothing to do with computers. Then I got interested, through thinking about topology, in the relations with distributed computing and that eventually formed a bridge into doing something in computing.
For those wanting to find out a little more about these connections, Herlihy & Rajsbaum, 2000, An Overview of Synchronous Message-Passing and Topology, is a really great place to start.
http://www.cs.brown.edu/people/mph/HerlihyR96/sv.pdf