Davis demonstrated that it is possible to build a complete system from scratch that expresses your own philosophy and preferences, no matter how eccentric. He

Davis demonstrated that it is possible to build a complete system from scratch that expresses your own philosophy and preferences, no matter how eccentric. He showed you can build a complete system just for yourself with no compromises arising from dependencies on other systems. There is some similarity in motivation with Wirth et al's Oberon system and Kay et al's Smalltalk and VPRI systems, but unlike them Davis was working entirely without professional or institutional connections, all the while beset by demons most of us cannot imagine. Davis showed that almost anyone starting out with modest technical skills and few resources, but enormous focus and motivation and time available, can do what Wirth et al and Kay et al can do. Davis' work shows the way to a completely different path than the prevailing hegemonic trend to try to build this or that system that everyone will use, that will take over the world. Maybe everyone deserves their own completely idiosyncratic and personalized system that can keep on working for them despite whatever the industry behemoths do. Perhaps an interesting research project might be to try to find ways to enable ordinary developers or even ordinary people to make such personalized stand-alone systems with no dependencies, without requiring years of fanatical single-minded effort.