9 ms·

James Gosling: Java, JVM, Emacs, and Computing History [video]

125 points by arbhassan 6y ago

jgalt212 6y ago
clearly the talk show format of 10 minutes with a guest with a few commercials interspersed in is very far from ideal, but just as far from ideal is 1h51m with a guest. Has someone posted a shorted edited version of this yet?
- lhoff 6y ago
  I listend to the interview as a podcast. It could have gone on for another hour if you ask me. I really like the long form interviews. It allows the guest to not just make there point but to tell the story how they came to that conclusion. That way its easier, at least for me, to internalise that knowledge. There is a podcast run by the german newspaper "Die Zeit" [1] where the concept is that the interview goes on until the guest thinks everything is said. The episodes usually last between 4 and 8 hours. The longest taking 9h 40 minutes. There is one episode with Ian McEwan that is recoded in english if someone that doesn't speak german is interested. That one just takes 2h so its not really a good example. [1]https://www.zeit.de/serie/alles-gesagt https://www.zeit.de/serie/alles-gesagt [2]https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-12/ian-mcewan-interviewpodcast-alles-gesagt https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-12/ian-mcewan-intervie...
  - gen220 6y ago
    Wow, this is fantastic. It’s not a medium with much popularity potential (very few people have >1 hour to spare on something as leisurely as an interview). But for the few people who would care for it, I think it’s super valuable that these things exist. It’s kind of like the “Slow TV” idea, except instead of touring Norway’s mountains and rivers, you’re touring the landscape of somebody’s thoughts. Very brave on the subject’s behalf. Many people, even public personalities, wouldn’t enjoy such scrutiny.
- notyourwork 6y ago
  > clearly the talk show format of 10 minutes with a guest with a few commercials interspersed in is very far from ideal, Why is this clearly not ideal? I think you're being overly critical of the production. If the format isn't ideal for your consumption, you don't have to watch it.
- II2II 6y ago
  I just turned it on while doing housework and paused to listen more carefully to the interesting bits. Sometimes it's nice to listen to a person's own words on their own terms, rather than having those words filtered through the lens of someone else's perspectives. Granted, this one is a bit special to me. I attended the same university as Gosling (decades later) so I could visualize the places and experiences he was talking about, while digging through old memories of my own. It's strange to think that a PDP that I saw in a trash heap may have been the machine he programmed on, and a prof that was teaching PDP assembly in the late-1990's may have been someone he learnt from.
  - non-entity 6y ago
    > It's strange to think that a PDP that I saw in a trash heap may have been the machine he programmed on I certainly hope you don't mean a literal trash heap.
    - II2II 6y ago
      This was over 20 years ago, and the machine itself would have been about 20 years old at that point. At that time, it would have been the norm to dispose of such a machine in such a manner. It was certainly too big to grab for the collection of vintage personal computers I had at the time![1] (To be more specific, it was a disorderly pile of pieces on a dock where equipment was frequently left to be disposed of.) Of course, I can't be certain it was the machine Gosling used. I don't know how many PDP's the university had. My recollections are also sufficiently vague that I don't remember the exact model, just that it was a PDP composed of many boards. Anyway, the bit about Gosling possibly using it was just a fancy I had while listening to the interview. [1] Calling those personal computers vintage seems weird now. None of those computers would have been older than 15 years at that point in time, but a 1982 computer would have less in common with a 1997 computer than a 2005 computer with a 2020 one.
- wazoox 6y ago
  Actually Lex does this on his other channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/LexClips/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/LexClips/videos Here is the 9 minutes part on Emacs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA7aB-oxjVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA7aB-oxjVc More are to come.
teddyh 6y ago
Richard Stallman on James Gosling: “[…] a friend of mine told me that because of his work in early development of Gosling Emacs, he had permission from Gosling in a message he had been sent to distribute his version of that. Gosling originally had set up his Emacs and distributed it free and gotten many people to help develop it, under the expectation based on Gosling’s own words in his own manual that he was going to follow the same spirit that I started with the original Emacs. Then he stabbed everyone in the back by putting copyrights on it, making people promise not to redistribute it and then selling it to a software-house. My later dealings with him personally showed that he was every bit as cowardly and despicable as you would expect from that history.” — Richard Stallman, lecture at KTH (Sweden), 30 October 1986
- mherrmann 6y ago
  I suspect there may also be another side to this story.
  - tyingq 6y ago
    Here's at least part of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dhrcxw/james_gosling_on_how_richard_stallman_stole_his/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_title https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dhrcxw/james_g... And a transcript if you don't like video: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2019/10/102781080-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... The Stallman stuff starts on page 30.
    - dctoedt 6y ago
      Gosling's version paints a decidedly different picture than the GGP's quote from RMS. I wonder if RMS was mad at Gosling for having the temerity to allow Unipress to sell his (Gosling's) version of Emacs, instead of leaving the Gosling version free for everyone as required by RMS's personal purity code?
    - tomcam 6y ago
      Gosling: Right. I mean, you can't sue a homeless person, right, which is, you know, he-- Yeah, he had sort of weird views on, you know, economic models at the time. Weber: And personal hygiene.
chrisseaton 6y ago
Is the host going to a funeral after recording the podcast with no time to change?
- anifru 6y ago
  No he just always wear suits because he likes the feeling of wearing one. His first episode on JRE (he's been on ~5 IIRC), he talks about it
- liability 6y ago
  Lex Fridman is to tech interviews what Reviewbrah is to cheeseburgers.
- jasode 6y ago
  >Is the host going to a funeral after recording the podcast with no time to change? I've seen your comment go from heavily downvoted (I didn't downvote it) -- to upvoted. To me, your comment seems mean-spirited and detracts from anything else positive that can be said about the actual content of the interview. Personally, it didn't occur to me to be bothered by the business suit. For others that agree with gp's funeral comment and upvoted it, can you explain what bugs you about the outfit? Is the attire signaling pretension?!? If you weren't aware, some of his other videos show how insecure he is with his place in life and how his accomplishments don't compare to those he admires. He's not a pretentious guy. The business suit just seems like a consistent "visual identity" since he goes on the road for interviews. He doesn't have a full studio and the "star power" to attract guests to his home location. EDIT to reply: "> I was always taught it was disrespectful to wear a black tie because it's reserved for people grieving." Interesting. I've been to several Catholic/Protestant/Jewish funerals and have never heard of that etiquette rule. I've also seen non-grieving people wear black colored ties to business meetings and formal dinners. Some like the "Men in Black" look.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    Not the suit - the tie. I was always taught it was disrespectful to wear a black tie because it's reserved for people grieving. Different communities are different though I guess. And maybe he's grieving in some regard, I suppose.
ryanmarsh 6y ago
11:30 - ~14:40 seems James has some form of synesthesia
kylewins 6y ago
I felt like there was much more to say in the interview, need a part 2 asap
Koshkin 6y ago
The 1980s are far, far from "the early days or computing."
- dang 6y ago
  Ok, they're at least history, so maybe we'll switch to that above.
corpMaverick 6y ago
I hadn't seen an image of James Gosling with white hair. Felt the sudden weight of the years. Then when he mentioned he worked on the Pascal compiler, and I realized that he was just a student when Nicklaus Wirth was already a legendary computer scientist.
JimTheMan 6y ago
Lex is killing it with the interviews! Stay true to yourself lex and you will go far!

125 points by arbhassan 6y ago

clearly the talk show format of 10 minutes with a guest with a few commercials interspersed in is very far from ideal, but just as far from ideal is 1h51m with a guest. Has someone posted a shorted edited version of this yet?

lhoff 6y ago
I listend to the interview as a podcast. It could have gone on for another hour if you ask me. I really like the long form interviews. It allows the guest to not just make there point but to tell the story how they came to that conclusion. That way its easier, at least for me, to internalise that knowledge. There is a podcast run by the german newspaper "Die Zeit" [1] where the concept is that the interview goes on until the guest thinks everything is said. The episodes usually last between 4 and 8 hours. The longest taking 9h 40 minutes. There is one episode with Ian McEwan that is recoded in english if someone that doesn't speak german is interested. That one just takes 2h so its not really a good example. [1]https://www.zeit.de/serie/alles-gesagt https://www.zeit.de/serie/alles-gesagt [2]https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-12/ian-mcewan-interviewpodcast-alles-gesagt https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2019-12/ian-mcewan-intervie...
- gen220 6y ago
  Wow, this is fantastic. It’s not a medium with much popularity potential (very few people have >1 hour to spare on something as leisurely as an interview). But for the few people who would care for it, I think it’s super valuable that these things exist. It’s kind of like the “Slow TV” idea, except instead of touring Norway’s mountains and rivers, you’re touring the landscape of somebody’s thoughts. Very brave on the subject’s behalf. Many people, even public personalities, wouldn’t enjoy such scrutiny.
notyourwork 6y ago
> clearly the talk show format of 10 minutes with a guest with a few commercials interspersed in is very far from ideal, Why is this clearly not ideal? I think you're being overly critical of the production. If the format isn't ideal for your consumption, you don't have to watch it.
II2II 6y ago
I just turned it on while doing housework and paused to listen more carefully to the interesting bits. Sometimes it's nice to listen to a person's own words on their own terms, rather than having those words filtered through the lens of someone else's perspectives. Granted, this one is a bit special to me. I attended the same university as Gosling (decades later) so I could visualize the places and experiences he was talking about, while digging through old memories of my own. It's strange to think that a PDP that I saw in a trash heap may have been the machine he programmed on, and a prof that was teaching PDP assembly in the late-1990's may have been someone he learnt from.
- non-entity 6y ago
  > It's strange to think that a PDP that I saw in a trash heap may have been the machine he programmed on I certainly hope you don't mean a literal trash heap.
  - II2II 6y ago
    This was over 20 years ago, and the machine itself would have been about 20 years old at that point. At that time, it would have been the norm to dispose of such a machine in such a manner. It was certainly too big to grab for the collection of vintage personal computers I had at the time![1] (To be more specific, it was a disorderly pile of pieces on a dock where equipment was frequently left to be disposed of.) Of course, I can't be certain it was the machine Gosling used. I don't know how many PDP's the university had. My recollections are also sufficiently vague that I don't remember the exact model, just that it was a PDP composed of many boards. Anyway, the bit about Gosling possibly using it was just a fancy I had while listening to the interview. [1] Calling those personal computers vintage seems weird now. None of those computers would have been older than 15 years at that point in time, but a 1982 computer would have less in common with a 1997 computer than a 2005 computer with a 2020 one.
wazoox 6y ago
Actually Lex does this on his other channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/LexClips/videos https://www.youtube.com/c/LexClips/videos Here is the 9 minutes part on Emacs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA7aB-oxjVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA7aB-oxjVc More are to come.

teddyh 6y ago

Richard Stallman on James Gosling: “[…] a friend of mine told me that because of his work in early development of Gosling Emacs, he had permission from Gosling in a message he had been sent to distribute his version of that. Gosling originally had set up his Emacs and distributed it free and gotten many people to help develop it, under the expectation based on Gosling’s own words in his own manual that he was going to follow the same spirit that I started with the original Emacs. Then he stabbed everyone in the back by putting copyrights on it, making people promise not to redistribute it and then selling it to a software-house. My later dealings with him personally showed that he was every bit as cowardly and despicable as you would expect from that history.” — Richard Stallman, lecture at KTH (Sweden), 30 October 1986

mherrmann 6y ago
I suspect there may also be another side to this story.
- tyingq 6y ago
  Here's at least part of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dhrcxw/james_gosling_on_how_richard_stallman_stole_his/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_title https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/dhrcxw/james_g... And a transcript if you don't like video: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2019/10/102781080-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20... The Stallman stuff starts on page 30.
  - dctoedt 6y ago
    Gosling's version paints a decidedly different picture than the GGP's quote from RMS. I wonder if RMS was mad at Gosling for having the temerity to allow Unipress to sell his (Gosling's) version of Emacs, instead of leaving the Gosling version free for everyone as required by RMS's personal purity code?
  - tomcam 6y ago
    Gosling: Right. I mean, you can't sue a homeless person, right, which is, you know, he-- Yeah, he had sort of weird views on, you know, economic models at the time. Weber: And personal hygiene.

chrisseaton 6y ago

Is the host going to a funeral after recording the podcast with no time to change?

anifru 6y ago
No he just always wear suits because he likes the feeling of wearing one. His first episode on JRE (he's been on ~5 IIRC), he talks about it
liability 6y ago
Lex Fridman is to tech interviews what Reviewbrah is to cheeseburgers.
jasode 6y ago
>Is the host going to a funeral after recording the podcast with no time to change? I've seen your comment go from heavily downvoted (I didn't downvote it) -- to upvoted. To me, your comment seems mean-spirited and detracts from anything else positive that can be said about the actual content of the interview. Personally, it didn't occur to me to be bothered by the business suit. For others that agree with gp's funeral comment and upvoted it, can you explain what bugs you about the outfit? Is the attire signaling pretension?!? If you weren't aware, some of his other videos show how insecure he is with his place in life and how his accomplishments don't compare to those he admires. He's not a pretentious guy. The business suit just seems like a consistent "visual identity" since he goes on the road for interviews. He doesn't have a full studio and the "star power" to attract guests to his home location. EDIT to reply: "> I was always taught it was disrespectful to wear a black tie because it's reserved for people grieving." Interesting. I've been to several Catholic/Protestant/Jewish funerals and have never heard of that etiquette rule. I've also seen non-grieving people wear black colored ties to business meetings and formal dinners. Some like the "Men in Black" look.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  Not the suit - the tie. I was always taught it was disrespectful to wear a black tie because it's reserved for people grieving. Different communities are different though I guess. And maybe he's grieving in some regard, I suppose.

ryanmarsh 6y ago

11:30 - ~14:40 seems James has some form of synesthesia

kylewins 6y ago

I felt like there was much more to say in the interview, need a part 2 asap

Koshkin 6y ago

The 1980s are far, far from "the early days or computing."

dang 6y ago
Ok, they're at least history, so maybe we'll switch to that above.

corpMaverick 6y ago

I hadn't seen an image of James Gosling with white hair. Felt the sudden weight of the years. Then when he mentioned he worked on the Pascal compiler, and I realized that he was just a student when Nicklaus Wirth was already a legendary computer scientist.

JimTheMan 6y ago

Lex is killing it with the interviews! Stay true to yourself lex and you will go far!