I was a computer science college student. I thought that the web was a great way to share information, but that "web applications" were boring compared to "rea

I was a computer science college student. I thought that the web was a great way to share information, but that "web applications" were boring compared to "real computer science" like programming language design and natural language processing. In some ways, I regret focusing so much on traditional computer science and ignoring the web -- I probably could have made significantly more money circa 2000 than I did. But on the other hand, I just read an interview with Don Knuth in this month's Communications of the ACM, in which Don encouraged readers to do the work that they personally find interesting, not what they think others think to be interesting. I've done some web work since 2000, and that can be fun, but when it gets down to it, my joy in computing really is found more in language processing than in web applications. Finding an income-optimizing way to merge the two would be most grand, I suppose. :-)