In 1977 the eminent Stanford mathematician Donald Knuth took 10 years out from writing the multi-volume Art of Computer Programming to develop TeX, an Open Source typesetting programme, and METAFONT, an Open Source font design programme. As a result, subsequent volumes of the Art of Computer Programming (and many of the rest of the world's computer-set technical publications) look nearly as good as work set in hot metal by a skilled monotype or linotype machine operator.
Knuth has a memorable explanation for why since 1990 he has not used email, and Peter Siebel is right to be excited that Knuth has agreed to be interviewed (along with other people with "form" in the computer programming world, including Peter Norvig, who will be speaking tomorrow at the 2007 ALT Conference) for Siebel's forthcoming book Coders at Work.
As an aside, the way in which Siebel has chosen the people to prioritise for interview - with a great deal of user feedback - is interesting, and you get the impression that the book will be intelligible to a lay audience, being, as Siebel says:
"a continuation of the tradition started by the Paris Review in 1953 when they published a Q&A interview with novelist E.M. Forster, inaugurating a series of interviews later titled “Writers at Work”. As the words “at work” suggest, my goal is to focus the interviews on how subjects tackle the day-to-day work of programming."
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